This Advent season, I have simply been unable to let go of this picture. It showed up the very first day of our Advent Devos this year—and I literally find myself coming back to look at it again and again. (A little aside, my husband discovered the online Advent Calendar produced by Biola University last year, and we honestly look forward to our devotions every day.)
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The picture described here is one depicting the Old Testament story of Hannah longing for a child. Her eyes are just haunting for me. I hadn’t thought of the deep aching sense of emptiness that goes with unanswered longing in this way before.
We all have personal voids and disappointments in our lives, but I believe that ministry itself is fraught with a depth and breadth of longing beyond our own places of emptiness.
A friend was recently describing a pastor that she knows as “a faithful leader, a good preacher, but a man whose disappointment in his congregation was palpable.” I wonder how true that is for many ministry leaders. We long for rich communities of faith. We long for lives and hearts to be changed by faith in Jesus Christ. We long for God’s kingdom to break in. All those longings are a part of what draws us to ministry.
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It’s not hard to be disappointed by the church these days, isn’t it? Whether by the distracted nature of our community life, or by the growing sense we have as leaders that no matter how hard we work, we will not be able to make our churches or ministries grow just by doing a better job. Of course, though that is misplaced longing, don’t we all with empty eyes land there at some time or another?
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And how do we then enter into a new year with hope? Could it be by holding on to dear Hannah–both in letting God fill our disappointed, empty eyes and hearts, and by seeing ministry through the eyes of the rest of her story– the promises God filled and fulfills?
Thank you Hannah, for not giving up and continuing to plead with God. Your empty eyes were a rich witness to Samuel then and to us all these years later. Come Lord Jesus, Come.
~Nancy Going
Vibrant Faith Ministries 