Volume 06, Issue 12:  Still Believe

We go through times of waiting for doors of opportunity to open. A job, a spouse, a baby, promotion, healing, restoration, whatever the heart desires. Sometimes what we hope for takes long to come to pass. When it tarries, the easiest road to take may be to give up and focus on something else. Even worse, stop seeking and live in disillusionment and bitterness.

How about taking the hard road of persistence? Once you are certain you are knocking on the right door, like Hannah, determine to persist until the door to what you seek is opened. Persistence and consistency is what we need to tarry at the place of prayer until the door opens.

Everyone who keeps on seeking will find; everyone who keeps on asking will receive; the door will be opened to those who keep on knocking.

Ask and it will be given to you, knock and the door will be opened for you; seek and you will find – Matthew 7:7

The door to having children was closed for Hannah. This did not stop her from knocking on the closed door. Hannah was miserable and dejected, but her condition did not stop her from seeking God. On the contrary, Hannah’s misery drove her closer to the Lord. She knocked on the door year after year. She agonized before the Lord at the temple in Shiloh year after year.

Many of us allow our problems to drive us away from God. We settle for substitutes to what we truly seek. You seek a husband, but when that door remains closed for long, you settle for a come-we-stay arrangement with a man who is not interested in marrying you. Hannah’s husband’s love for her was no consolation for what she sought. She knocked on the door for a child and did not give up. She kept on knocking year after year.

As you stand knocking before a closed door, be prepared to be misunderstood. People will tell you to move on and find something else to focus on. But if the Lord says he took your infirmities on the cross, then you believe it even when you are not healed yet. You stand believing that his blood is sufficient for you. Hannah was not understood by her husband who expected her to be content with his love for her. Eli the man of God rebuked her for drunkardness as she agonized and poured out her heart before the Lord at Shiloh. Don’t seek to be understood, keep on knocking.

Even when God sets before us open doors, there’s often opposition at the door, to keep us from entering. It is those who persist who enjoy what lies therein. Whatever it is that you seek within God’s will for your life, keep on seeking; keep on asking; keep on knocking; believing, and expect to receive.

Lillian Chebosi