"Sing, o barren one..."

"Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married, says the LORD." Isaiah 54:1

Isaiah 54 is my favourite chapter in the whole Bible and God used it so many times to speak to me in the past that I stopped counting. I decided to start a Bible study on this chapter. As always any Bible study I undertake is purely because I want to learn something new about my God. Knowledge which is not focused on Him is useless to me. I love to learn but to me it has to be with a purpose or else I feel like I am wasting my time.

Anyway, I went to Isaiah 54:1 and as soon as I read the first verse I though about Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist (Luke 1). And then I thought about Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 1).

I'll start with Hannah. She was the wife of Elkanah and her husband loved her but she could not have children. The Bible says that "the Lord closed her womb". Elkanah had a second wife, Peninnah who was able to have children. Peninnah used to mock Hannah to the point that Hannah would weap bitterly and refuse to eat. She would often go the House of God and beg for a child desperatly. In fact she would be so desperate that one day the priest Eli saw her and he thought she was drunk. But Hannah was not drunk, she was desperate. In the end, the Lord made justice for Hannah and she had a boy. You would think after begging for a child for so long, and a boy nonetheless, Hannah would not have left Samuel out of her sight. But by the time, Hannah had the child she came to know the God who listen to hear pleas and gave her justice. So she does something no one would have thought possible. She gives her son to the Lord in ultimate sacrifice and surrender:

"And she said, Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the LORD. For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to him.Therefore I have lent him to the LORD. As long as he lives, he is lent to the LORD. And he worshiped the LORD there." 1 Samuel 1:26-28

Fast forward to another barren one named Elizabeth. She was the wife of Zechariah and her husband was a priest in God's House. The Bible says that they were both righteous people but Elizabeth was barren and advanced in years. We all know the story of how the angel Gabriel shows himself to Zechariah in the Temple and tells him that he will have a son and he should name him John. Elizabeth becomes pregnant in spite of her years, just as the angel of the Lord said and it is beautiful to see what Elizabeth says about God "Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people." She basically calls Him, 'the God who gives me justice". Many other blessings follow justice in Elizabeth's live. Soon after she is visited by Mary, her cousin who is carrying the Lord. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and blesses Mary for what the Lord did for her. From the priest's barren wife, in a matter of months Elizabeth carries a prophet in her belly and becomes partaker in God's plan. She becomes part of the God's inner circle, if you wish.

Why did I focus of the story of these two women? And what can we learn about God from their stories?

"Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married, says the LORD." Isaiah 54:1

Were you ever in a place where you were longing for a dream to come to pass? The type of longing that would make you feel a physical emptiness inside you? Have you ever tried to kill a dream within you, because the pain of keeping it alive is too much to bear and somehow, it refuses to go away? You end up praying to God "Please if this is just me, please make it go away. I don't want this anymore. Please take it away, if You will not make it come to pass." And nothing, as if you just spoke to a wall. Are people around you telling you politely to drop it, because you kind of sound obssesed or even worse are they laughing and gossiping about you? How many times do you think Hannah and Elizabeth begged for their children? Why do you think the Bible says about Hannah that the Lord closed her womb? Why am I asking all these questions?...

Because I want you to grasp something with me. Just as with everything else in our walk as children of God, it is not about the dream, it is about who you become whilst you pursue it. My sister wrote once in one of her blogs, '"He wants me to cerish the heart of the One who made the promise more than the promise itself...If in my mind His character changes just because I am exhausted from waiting, of what use would be to me the fulfilment of the promise?" 

Are you still "barren" waiting for your dream? Then "break forth singing and cry aloud". If you can't then perhaps you should look inside and make sure you did not become bitter and fed up from waiting. If by the time you receive your dream you can't act like Hannah or praise the Lord like Elizabeth and if you did not learn to cherish the heart of the One who promised that "all things work together for your good", then what is the point of you getting your dream?

But if you learn to cherish Him more than your dream. If you sing now because you believe that "the children of the desolate will be more than the children of the one who is married", then you might just find yourself at the end of it all the happy partaker to God's secret plans and able to recognise His presence even when hidden in a mother's womb.