Don’t Give Up!

Don’t Give Up!

Ichabod’s Mother

Read: 1 Samuel 4:12-22

Within a period of seven years, best-selling author and speaker Barbara Johnson lost one son in Vietnam, had a second son killed by a drunk driver, and discovered that a third son had adopted a homosexual lifestyle. She admits that she thought about driving off a California overpass; instead, she began a ministry that has offered words of hope and joy to thousands of heartbroken women.

In one message, Ichabod’s mother learned of the deaths of her husband and father-in-law and the loss of the Ark of the Covenant. This bad news caused her to go into labor and into despair. The midwives tried to comfort her, because the Israelites regarded the birth of a son as a great blessing, but she named her son Ichabod (“Where is the glory?”). Before she died, she said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured.”

Israel had treated the Ark as a magic charm that would ensure a military victory instead of revering it as the testimony of God’s presence and provision. Ichabod’s mother also seemed to depend more on the symbol than on God. The name that she chose for her son reflected her hopelessness. Her final words make us wonder if she died from physical complications or because she simply lost her will to live.

Trials and losses can make us feel that God’s glory has departed from our lives. It may be that God wants to wean us from dependence on visible evidence of his working so that we can learn to trust in him alone. Galatians 6:9 urges us not to get tired of doing good and promises that “we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” We will experience disappointment in life, but we should never be hopeless if we have the glory of God’s Holy Spirit living within us.

To [His saints] God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:27 (NKJV)