Recalibrating The Heart

The LORD watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing love. He rescues them from death and keeps them alive in times of famine.

Psalm 33:18-19

A famine is an acute shortage or a deprivation. Famines come in every shape, size, and duration. A famine might hit your life in any of several areas: finances, relationships, health, profession.

But like everything else in our lives, famines can serve God’s purposes. A famine can change the trajectory of our lives or recalibrate our hearts.

Consider Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Neither Hannah nor Samuel is the primary character in this story. The central, cohesive character is God himself. Everything else—Hannah’s barrenness, her prayer, Samuel’s birth—is the working out of God’s agenda. Our first clear glimpse into what God is doing is found in 1 Samuel: “In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions” (3:1, NIV). God had no one through whom to speak to his people, no one whose heart was fully at his disposal.

Do you see how, by withholding the fulfillment of Hannah’s desire, God is making Hannah’s heart the reservoir of his own desire? God wants a prophet. Hannah wants a son.

During Hannah’s famine, God focused her faith. I have to think that, in the beginning of her marriage, Hannah assumed that the biological processes of her body would produce a son. By the time Samuel was born, Hannah had learned that only God could give her a son. Hannah understood that if the Lord gave her a son, that son belonged to the Lord. In the beginning, Hannah had been ready to be the mother of a son. But she had not been ready to be the mother of a prophet. God intended more than Hannah could ask or think, and he had to prepare her heart to receive it. During the famine’s prayer process, God recalibrated Hannah’s heart to match his own.

Father, in my famine, you are still Lord. Let my famine serve your purposes.

God graciously uses our need and desire for help to educate us for something higher than we were thinking of. We were seeking gifts; He, the Giver, longs to give Himself and to satisfy the soul with His goodness.

Andrew Murray(1828–1917), South African pastor and author