The Path of Life

Christians do what we do before God. Our deepest heart desires to please our Lord, not to win favor with man. We therefore daily seek His thoughts and direction about everything in our lives. He promises to show us the path of life, how to live fully in His presence. He knows every detail of the life He has for us, including the number of hairs on our heads! We need the light of His higher life to see through this present darkness to the highway He has planned and purposed for each of us:

“‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 NASB

“Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, But the Lord weighs the hearts.” Proverbs 21:2 BSB

God has promised to change hearts yielded to Him to give a new heart that is loving and merciful, like He is. God is the only One who knows all about us and loves us the same. Nothing can ever separate us from His love. What we truly desperately require is His light within our own hearts, because who can truly know their own heart?

“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, to give to each person according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 NASB

God searches our hearts, revealing what needs to be dealt with, purging within for change. He shines His light into our darkness to show the way. God deals with His sons and daughters always from His heart of love, mercy, and justice. When we ask in faith, He shows us specifically how He would have us handle each event in our lives. Sometimes, He tells us to wait upon right judgment. He whispers, “Wait. Let me handle your life until you have the right heart, my heart, the right balance, to take this on. You don’t yet see as I see.”

God knows we cannot see as He sees, because His thoughts and ways are truly higher than our thoughts and earthly actions. There’s a song that starts “Let God arise and His enemies be scattered.” It may be better stated, “and our enemies be scattered”. There remain enemies of His people that must be scattered by the brilliance of His life and light. God is at rest with no enemies, but there remain enemies to His kingdom within and without.

If God is at rest, totally in charge of everything, what power can come against the God of the universe? Jesus Christ our Lord holds the priestly position of intercession for us against our enemies. He takes on our battles as we love and yield to Him. The adversary may rule the earth as a roaring dragon in the world, bringing adversity that is His battle within and without. Christ remains by our side as He takes us through rather than out of our trials and challenges.

God leaves us in the battle brought by our circumstances, if not our choices, until this refining process has done its work. Such adversity brings character growth, maturing a child, natural or spiritual, more rapidly than blessings do. We need both, but this truth is hard for some to accept. Thankfully, God is able to reveal His thoughts and ways to His people. He has a very unique and specific path for each of us. His ultimate purpose is for His saints to have purified hearts without guile, prepared to bring redemption for all.

We need to stay in God’s school to become like Abraham, a Friend of God who understood God’s heart:

“And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God’s friend.” James 2:23

We must understand and learn Who God is to discern the intent of His heart. God is spirit and we must learn to worship Him in spirit and in truth. God is love and mercy, never harsh and cruel to those who love Him. We must go deeper to settle critical questions with Him by the Holy Spirit. We need to search to find out what God’s thoughts are, His purpose in what He does.

“But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Proverbs 4:8 BSB

“You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.” Psalms 16:11 BSB

We need the light of His spirit to show us the way. How else can we become the light for others? King David, the psalmist, was assured that God would show him the path of life. Read about David’s many battles leading the Lord’s people and you will see, over and over, how David went to the Lord first, asking God what he should do. God told David His very, very specific, brilliant strategies for winning the battles against King David’s enemies.

Perhaps most frequently, we search to understand the purpose in what He does not do — what He allows. When David committed grievous sin, he repented, yielding to God and accepting the consequences. Without the Holy Spirit revealing and teaching us His ways, we become troubled and confused by His acts. There are many things God allows that we just don’t understand. We have many questions! Like David, we ask the Lord, particularly in our despair and confusion, and He answers us. We, too, can receive very specific, needed guidance in our daily lives.

We do not have to be a great King to hear from the Lord. You might be surprised at the details God will help us with when we ask. Small, daily things that we might think we should not bother Him by asking are okay, as well as asking about large and critical decisions for which we need His wisdom and guidance. When we know that Father God is responding with holy spirit directives even in the small details of living, it increases our faith and trust in Him with our bigger issues.

Our Father is a very attentive and loving Parent. He cares and listens to the smallest details of our lives. Father God displays infinite patience and mercy when we babble on about things He knows all about. He is the perfect example of a loving parent or grandparent who listens to every detail of a small child’s babbling, loving the child even more for the child’s innocence.

God already knows everything in our hearts and is yet most gracious in listening to our prayers about anything. The more we pray for God’s guidance in everything, the more we show our Lord that we trust Him more than ourselves. God never said that we have to reserve one part of our life to handle ourselves because it’s too small or petty to bother Him about. If God knows the hairs on our heads and His eye is on the sparrow, He surely cares about everything we are and do.

It is in this way that we are taught to listen to hear His voice within, that still, small voice of our Lord. While we may think God always thunders from the heavens, making Himself known to the world in dramatic ways, God most often speaks within His own in a still small voice, as He showed Elijah, the great prophet. After Elijah defeated the pagan god Baal, he ran and hid in fear of Jezebel, the great Queen who served Baal, desperately needing to hear from God.

“Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind;

and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire;

and after the fire a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19: 11-12 NKJV

There are times when we are also desperate to hear God. We want Him to dramatically move the mountains in our path, to lift us from the valleys we must walk through, to make straight the wanderings of our souls. These are times when we most question His timing when He refuses to act in haste according to our demands. Locked in earthly, limited time in contrast to His eternal perspective, we just do not get it!

We are not alone in this. Mary and Martha got upset with Jesus about His timing, which allowed their brother, Lazarus, to die:

“When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already spent four days in the tomb. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, a little less than two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them in the loss of their brother.

So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him; but Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask of Him.’

‘Your brother will rise again,’ Jesus told her. Martha replied, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’” John 11:17-26 BSB

Jesus could have been there immediately, but He always did what the Father showed Him to do. He risked the pain he caused His dear friends Martha and Mary by delaying until all earthly help had more than vanished. We, who know the Lord can do anything at any time, struggle most when He does not. We cannot explain away His failure to act by saying something prevented Him. How could God be unable to do anything that is according to His will?

Despite Jesus’ delay, Martha still had faith that her Lord Jesus could ask the Father and He would grant whatever was asked. She knew Jesus could raise Lazarus, though it may seem too much to hope for after four days of the decay of death. That is true faith! She already believed in the resurrection, though she did not see the Resurrection before her. Jesus did what no human could ever do. For the glory of God the Father, Lazarus was resurrected to life longer with his loving family.

We do not yet live in eternity in spirit, soul, and body, so we cannot help being limited in our understanding of matters of life and death. Such is one of the many challenges we have in understanding God’s spiritual ways from our limited earthly perspective. We humans prioritize events on earth when we remain stuck in this spiritual dimension. We question and doubt, failing to see how the Lord will make something good out of what has come to pass.

Though the Lord yet seems to tarry, to show up in our circumstances when all else is lost and undone, He is faithful and just. He never runs out of answers and does all things well, regardless of our earthly questions and doubts. God prioritizes the spiritual world more than the earthly world in which we live. Remember, this is not our homeland. It is just our training ground for eternal life to be forever with the Lord.

God is spirit, living in eternity, not in time. He invites us to have His perspective, even when someone we love dies. While we grieve at such most painful losses, we are not to grieve without hope. God reminds us that the death of His saints is precious. It is a release for those who die in the Lord. They enter into rest in their rank and order in the unseen, delivered from the earthly challenges we continue to face.

“Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.

By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise.

After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 BSB

We believers are not among those who have no expectation! Our world is His world, designed to shape, train, and develop us, His children, into the fullness of His path for each of us. He reveals His path of life for each faithful Christian who looks to Him for direction. Sometimes it is like the headlights of a car driving in deep darkness with no moon or any other light around. We see just what is right ahead of us and how to keep going.

At other times, He reveals this path of life in glorious technicolor so we cannot miss it! We love it when He says clearly: “Here is the path—walk in it!” His word powerfully reassures us of His hold on us, His constant presence in our lives. He desires us to know His way and makes it abundantly clear to those who ask in reverence and fear. He is ever faithful:

“...I will never [under any circumstances] desert you [nor give you up nor leave you without support, nor will I in any degree leave you helpless], nor will I forsake or let you down nor will I relax my hold on you [assuredly not]!” Hebrews 13:5b AMP

How compassionate and emphatic! God has us, in all circumstances, always and forever. But let’s face it, it’s still challenging to endure God’s timing. We wait and wait, sometimes a lifetime, for some things to be worked out for us, those we love, or in this sin-ridden world. Yet when we are in God’s waiting room, as difficult as it may be on our flesh, we learn a great deal about Him and ourselves.

Once, when God finally said “Soon.” in response to a ten-year-long wait for my deeply felt prayer for a child, I honestly replied: “Your soon or my soon?” My soon was in a few months, not two years later, when His soon was fulfilled under the right circumstances. By that time in my walk with the Lord, I knew that His soon was rarely what I considered soon. I had no desire to be 90 like Sarah when God quickened her womb, particularly knowing that a year is like a day to Him:

“Beloved, do not let this one thing escape your notice: With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:8 BSB

Well, no wonder things look messed up to our eyes now! The Lord intends all to come to repentance, and that surely will take, from our perspective, a long, long, long time. He has an eternal plan that we are trying to understand in the context of our brief lives here on earth. Clearly, God does what He does when implementing His perfect plan, regardless of our impatience in waiting. God’s timing definitely is not ours. He does not operate on our timetable!

While waiting upon the Lord to act in the affairs of humans, I asked God, who knows every heart and sees everything about humans, how He can stand all the pain in our world. For those of us who have compassion for the suffering, interceding for all, the ongoing deep distress, loss, and pain we see sometimes becomes hard to bear. He most clearly told me: “Because I know the end from the beginning.” Therein lies the difference.

Peter cautions us not to think He is slow in keeping His promises to us, though that is exactly what it feels like! What we think is a long time is mere seconds to the Lord of the universe. We wait, patiently or not, building up our faith and trust in Him as we wait… or not. We may become so focused upon and limited by our present earthly life and circumstances that we forget this is but a blink of time in the life of the spirit.

God is most interested in bringing our perspective up to His. He calls us to an ever-higher realm to learn of His ways. He will have a people without spot or wrinkle. Through His army of such saints, led by our King of all kings and Lord of all Lords, will save all throughout the ages. The mission of Jesus Christ and His many-membered body on the earth is to bring this world He so loves back into Himself.

God will accomplish all that His word has said in His time. As the song says, “He makes all things beautiful in His time.” Sometimes it seems He delights in showing up in circumstances at the very last minute, when all human hope is lost. It is then quite obvious that no human hand is accomplishing what He proceeds to do. Such was the experience of many in the Bible who serve as examples to us.

Consider Hannah, the most beloved one of Elkanah’s two wives. Being barren, Hannah was tormented by Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, who easily produced children for Elkanah. Penninah taunted and ridiculed soft-hearted Hannah about her childless state, making her life most miserable. Though Hannah became more and more despondent and heartbroken through the years of waiting and hoping for a child, there’s no account that she complained or defended herself to others, even to Elkanah, her husband.

Here’s what eventually unfolded for Hannah:

“Year after year Elkanah would go up from his city to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts at Shiloh, where Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the Lord. And whenever the day came for Elkanah to present his sacrifice, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah, he would give a double portion, for he loved her even though the Lord had closed her womb.

Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival would provoke her and taunt her viciously. And this went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival taunted her until she wept and would not eat. ‘Hannah, why are you crying?’ her husband Elkanah asked. ‘Why won’t you eat? Why is your heart so grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?’” 1 Samuel 1:3-8 BSB

Elkanah could not truly understand Hannah’s behavior in all of this. And this account just casually states that the Lord closed Hannah’s womb. How astonishing! This path of life for Hannah was set by God to either delay or deny her becoming a mother. All would be done in His time, regardless of what Hannah so desperately wanted. How painful and difficult for her and how that spoke to my own struggles in waiting to become a mother.

Being a mother was really the only role for wives in that era, to produce and raise children. Elkanah favored Hannah with extra portions and tried to comfort her about not producing a child. But, as with any woman deeply desiring a child, his actions were no comfort for her longing. Her husband did what he could for this most beloved wife. Penninah surely saw the favor her husband bestowed on Hannah, likely making her even more jealous and cruel.

Penninah’s torment of Hannah is recorded as happening every year when they traveled to the annual feast times to worship the Lord. This was typically a most joyous time of celebration for the Lord’s chosen people. It was not so for Hannah, however. Each year, she was forced to be with Penninah, enduring her cruelty with a sad and broken heart. Perhaps at home, Hannah could avoid her tormentor.

This account says nothing about what Elkanah knew about Penninah’s abusive treatment of Hannah. It seems Elkinah was unaware of the abuse being heaped on Hannah. There’s no account that Hannah told him about it. But Hannah knew it was God with whom she had to deal. Her prayers about her need, her great desire for a child, were to God, not to her husband. She did not ask God about Penninah’s treatment of her.

As Hannah became desperate about her desire for a son, she pleaded and bargained with the Lord:

“In her bitter distress, Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears. And she made a vow, pleading, ‘O Lord of Hosts, if only You will look upon the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, not forgetting Your maidservant but giving her a son, then I will dedicate him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall ever come over his head.’

As Hannah kept on praying before the Lord, Eli watched her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and though her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard. So Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, ‘How long will you be drunk? Put away your wine!’

No, my lord,’ Hannah replied. ‘I am a woman oppressed in spirit. I have not had any wine or strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; for all this time I have been praying out of the depth of my anguish and grief.’

‘Go in peace,’ Eli replied, ‘and may the God of Israel grant the petition you have asked of Him.’ ‘May your maidservant find favor with you,’ said Hannah. Then she went on her way, and she began eating again, and her face was no longer downcast. The next morning Elkanah and Hannah got up early to bow in worship before the Lord and then returned home to Ramah.

And Elkanah had relations with his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. So in the course of time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, ‘Because I have asked for him from the Lord.’ Then Elkanah and all his house went up to make the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, but Hannah did not go.

“After the boy is weaned,’ she said to her husband, ‘I will take him to appear before the Lord and to stay there permanently.’…Once she had weaned him, Hannah took the boy with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. Though the boy was still young, she brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh. And when they had slaughtered the bull, they brought the boy to Eli.

‘Please, my lord,’ said Hannah, ‘as surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this boy, and since the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him, I now dedicate the boy to the Lord. For as long as he lives, he is dedicated to the Lord.’” 1 Samuel 1:10-18; 24-26 BSB

Hannah got her deepest desire. She gave birth to her precious son, Samuel, and raised him for a few years. She then kept her bargain with the Lord, taking Samuel to live with Eli to be trained as a priest in the house of the Lord. Can you imagine giving away the precious child God gave you after many years of petition and misery? The deepest heart desire of Hannah was, after all, placed there by the Lord. Her baby was a part of God’s path of life for her, and, as such, was eventually fulfilled.

And Samual was born for just that time! There was a critical lack in the priesthood because the current priest, Eli, had two priest sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who did evil in the sight of the Lord. Samuel became the priest to replace them, going on to become one of the great prophets of the Old Testament. This account reveals the deeper truth here about God’s investment in birthing children at His specific timing and for His purposes.

Those of us who wait and wait to be gifted with a child often struggle as Hannah did. When we are serving the Lord, His timing is necessary not just to fulfil our hearts’ desires, but to fulfil His plans, while we are focusing on our earthly desires to be fulfilled. But sons and daughters of God’s chosen people are often born to such a time as this. God makes sure our precious children are born for a particular work that is needed in God’s plan for that age.

This may not be revealed before the child’s birth, but each generation has those called and chosen to do God’s work. Remember, Abraham and Sarah waited for their precious Isaac, the Child of Promise, until Sarah was 90 and past childbearing years! By that time, they had both given up until God spoke a different future into existence. His plan is worth waiting for God’s best though it is so difficult.

In God’s waiting room, we learn many a reluctant lesson, as did Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob. Rachel was barren, longing to have a child with Jacob. She stands by, heartbroken and jealous, as her sister Leah, Jacob’s other wife and her older sister, produces four sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Rachel is the wife Jacob loved, while Leah was forced upon Jacob first through deception by Rachel’s father. Yet she remained childless until the last few years of her life.

Jacob had served their father for seven years to win Rachel, only to be tricked into marrying Leah instead. Jacob served another seven years to finally win Rachel. Yet here she is, barren for years, watching, waiting with building resentment, impatience, and anger. Rachel finally becomes convinced she cannotlive unless she has a child. We hear her anguish and pain when she erupts with fury at Jacob:

“Now when Rachel saw that she [still] had not borne Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister; and she said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or else I am going to die.’ Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, ‘Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?’” Genesis 30:1-2 KJV

Rachel had been waiting and waiting to have a child with Jacob, to no avail. Over time, she became increasingly bitter and jealous, searching for someone to blame. There was Jacob, her husband, who became the target of her anger and despair. Is this possibly the first appearance of the blame the husband way of coping when we wives are unhappy? Rachel proves not to be one to keep quiet about her troubles like Hannah.

How often might Jacob have heard about Rachel’s unhappiness! Jacob likely responded many times before to Rachel’s concerns and complaints, doing his best to comfort her with compassion. He longed to fix the issue because he so loved Rachel and desired her happiness, but he knew only God could change this. Finally, Jacob exploded with frustration and anger at Rachel when she blamed him for God’s decisions.

Jacob’s angry response is not uncommon from a loving husband who feels helpless when his wife is most unhappy, and making him most unhappy in dwelling with her! Jacob knew it was up to God if she was to bear a child, not him. God is the One who had closed up her womb for years. Jacob dearly loved Rachel, who was the wife of his heart, and yet he could not give her what she most wanted.

What Jacob said to Rachel was truthful, though not comforting, and one would hope that Rachel would surrender to God about it. But she does not. Rachel takes matters into her own hands by devising a plan to give Jacob her maid, Bilhah, to produce children. Bilhah birthed sons, Dan and Naphtali, on Rachel’s behalf. And do you think God was surprised and unprepared for this? All was a part of God’s plan to birth twelve sons to Jacob, who would become the twelve tribes of Israel.

Leah and both of their maids had ten sons for Jacob. Is it surprising that Rachel’s decision to have Jacob impregnate her maid again stirred up the competition in her sister, Leah? Leah was older, past her childbearing years, when she saw Rachel producing two sons through her maid. She couldn’t have that, so she got her maid, Zilpah, to produce two more sons for Jacob: Gad and Asher.

Amazingly, Leah later miraculously conceived again after bartering with Rachel for another night with Jacob. Leah produced two more sons, Issachar and Zebulun. Finally, in God’s timing and to fulfill His plans for Jacob’s sons, Rachel had her sons, Joseph and Benjamin. But Rachel had only a short time with her two sons, dying in childbirth when Benjamin was born. She died and was buried in the wilderness, while Leah lived on and was buried with Jacob and his ancestors.

These very human relationships became the foundation of God’s chosen people through the twelve tribes of Israel, Jacob’s new name. Though imperfect, all fulfilled a destiny in God. Each was a child of promise and God’s idea, yet at least half of the sons of Jacob were conceived as part of the ongoing competition between these two women! And Leah, the despised wife, was the one in the lineage of Jesus, through her son, Judah.

We are most thankful that polygamy is no longer God’s way, but many of us 21st-century women can identify with the pain of childlessness. We relate to feelings of envy, resentment, and competition with other women who seem to easily have children. We may struggle particularly as we watch women who do not want children or are ill-equipped to care for them seem to easily give birth. Infertility is common in our era, causing much grief and pain in people who so long to have a child.

This issue costs many a relationship as the path to having a child is sought. Perhaps we haven’t seen it in ourselves, but surely we can see it in the women around us – at home with our relatives, at work, fellowshiping with our Christian sisters. Strife and jealousy are hard to resist when another woman seems so easily to have what we so acutely desire.

Perhaps we do not jealously wish that they do not have their blessings, but we still envy their blessings. We continue to grieve in our hearts that this privilege of conceiving a child has not been allowed for us. Mother’s Day becomes very painful for those who want to be parents but are not. God knows.

“There are three things that are never satisfied—no, four that never say, ‘Enough!’: the grave, the barren womb, the thirsty desert, the blazing fire.” Proverbs 30:15b-16 NLT

Hannah and Rachel present a contrast in their differing ways of coping with childlessness as part of the path God chose for them. Rachel is a fighter, determined to get what she wants no matter what it. Her later behavior regarding her sons’ future further reveals that she is willing to manipulate to get her way. Hannah is an internalizer who is passive, depressed, and oppressed by her barrenness. She has years of unhappiness with unrest and sadness, while she continually appeals to God.

Neither are at peace with their lack of children nor God’s timing in addressing their passionate desire to be a mother. This tis displayed within our Christian families and communities, causing harm and discord, robbing us and others of peace. Envy and jealousy are devouring emotions that can literally eat us up. When these draining emotions are allowed in the hearts of believers, they add turmoil and unhappiness to individuals and to family relationships.

Holding on to them eventually develops a root bitterness, which Paul tells us defiles many:

“Pursue peace with everyone, as well as holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up to cause trouble and defile many.” Hebrews 12:14-15 BSB

Competition, jealousy, envy, and manipulative plans to be the most important, the one favored, also appear in many families today. Siblings may not get along because of it. In blended families, a wife and ex-wife may battle for position and favor with the husband or children. Some fathers and mothers are masters at setting their children against the other parent, whether separated or together, to the detriment of the children more than anyone else.

Parents and their adult children may fight over who gets to decide how the children are raised, particularly when grandparents provide childcare. Adult siblings without children may resent the time, attention, emotional, and financial investment paid to grandchildren. Resentments arise because of centering family occasions around the children and their parents. Conflicts arise about which side of the family has the grandparents’ time and presence for holidays and other important family occasions.

We could go on and on, as it is the way of all flesh. Selfishness and competition are passed from generation to generation. Some families act as if there is literally not enough love to go around. Even close friends display jealousy when their friendships are robbed of time and shared activities after one becomes a parent while the other is not.

It takes God for us to truly rejoice in another’s blessings when we are seemingly deprived of the same. Rachel and Hannah were both beloved by their husbands and favored by God, but remained barren for many years. Clearly, this blessing being denied for so long was not because Rachel and Hannah were unloved by God, though Rachel may have felt that way. When we do not get what we want in life, it can be easy to slip into the lie that God does not love us enough to give what seems to be provided so easily to others.

Rachel did not know or accept the hard truth that God is the giver of life or the closer of the womb. Rachel’s anger at Jacob is then seen as a childish, immature way of blaming someone else and, ultimately, God, the ultimate Controller, when we don’t get our way. Some may have considered foolish actions while waiting or insisting on our way. We can struggle mightily while waiting for God’s timing and direction.

Thankfully, there are now many options for becoming parents when unable to conceive. Those directed in these paths can testify, however, that the path to parenthood remains a difficult waiting game while waiting for a precious child to be gifted to them. Many a happy child is being raised by people who did not literally bring them into the world, children for whom tragedy and trauma have deprived them of being raised by a birth parent.

Most options are not easy paths, but there are in vitro fertilization, fertility drugs, foster care, or adoption. Siblings, aunts and uncles, close friends, or neighbors may take on a child to raise when the biological parent(s) are unable or unwilling to do it. Children benefit from the love and care that they so wondrously provide, having a family when they, through no fault of theirs, do not have this most essential blessing.

"He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord." Psalm 113:9 KJV

It is no less a meant to be plan of God to be given the gift and responsibility of a child in another way besides conception. Painful though the wait is, God surely turns childlessness into good in His time. Some paths of life to which Christians are called necessitate remaining childless. Others are blessed with a long-awaited child. Unless God intervenes, others must surrender, seeking God for peace about their remaining childlessness in our child-focused world.

For these beloved children of God, He takes away the pain of childlessness while revealing their path of life that must be fulfilled. Gradually, we learn that our struggle with God’s timing and provision is because we do not understand or trust the heart of God. He is love! He does not withhold any good thing from us, regardless of our struggle with the specific path He revealsbefore us:

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows grace and favor and honor; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Psalms 84:11 AMP

When we are walking uprightly, obedient to His ways, He graciously grants us all good things. But perhaps, and this is not meant lightly, we disagree with what God defines as a good thing! Isn’t that usually what we are pleading with God about? We are not typically begging God for something unclean or bad, are we? Of course we are asking for a good thing. In fact, it is something that most Christians seem to easily obtain. Why not us? Why NOT us??!!

Though we know it is not right to be angry with our Lord, this may start to grow in our hearts. Though we may try to hide this from God, we know it is not right or pleasing to Him. We may avoid Him as we might with another human with whom we are angry. Or we hide it from ourselves, pushing it way down in our souls, not wanting to see it because we know it is wrong. But there it is, simmering and waiting to erupt, as Rachel’s anger did with Jacob or Hannah’s did in bitter tears and prayers.

Many an Old Testament saint voiced their anger to God, discussing their concerns directly. Why pretend to God when He can see into our hearts better than we can? We are in a Father/child relationship where He delights to show us His path, to teach us the truth. We might as well talk with God. He’s the One with whom we have to deal and the only One who can help. Even when we are angry, or most especially when we are, we can run to our Father to talk about it.

The sooner we do this, the better it will be for us. Then we won’t have a root of bitterness and jealousy growing further in our hearts. A root of bitterness does defile others around us as well as causing much personal depression and unhappiness in life. God will never operate within our immature, pouting human idea of “If He loved me, He would give me what I want.” We may try out this emotional blackmail to get our way with people, but God cannot be manipulated.

Father God will do what He will do. And, most importantly, He is with us either way! We can talk with Him honestly about what’s happening. Our marvelous Lord is able then to change our hearts to surrender rather than to harbor anger and loss of peace, no matter what we’ve allowed to build up within us. We may even be required to forgive God. What an astounding thought!

If you are still uncomfortable with admitting to God that you are angry with Him, it’s even more astounding to hear Him say you need to forgive Him! But why not? We know He does no wrong, but in our human hearts, with our limited perspective, we judge the Lord, seeing Him as a withholding, rather than a generous Father. God appears fine with allowing us to go on hurting and unhappy, seemingly distant and removed from our suffering.

We do love Him, but we don’t understand His ways. It feels like a betrayal of His love to deny us this good thing or to postpone it until we’ve given up in despair. So, the Holy Spirit may direct us to forgive our perfect Lord because we don’t understand and are angry and hurt, just as what is needed in other significant relationships. This is yet another way He uses to clear out our hearts so we understand the path of life He has destined specifically for us.

With clean spirits and peaceful hearts, we are much more able to accept the specific, careful, and wondrous path of life He will unfold before us. God may grant our most important desire, as He later did with Rachel, Hannah, and many others, including me. And that is the outcome we all want to occur. Eventually, I sought the Lord to take away my deep pain of being childless, to grant me peace regardless.

God took away the pain of my childlessness, granting me great peace. The battle within ended as I surrendered to His path for me. I grew enough to be willing to remain childless if I could not do His will as a parent. After that, He began to confirm His plan to give me a child, within my heart, and confirmed by a prophet of the Lord. I was blessed with one precious son at age 40, and thankfully it happened much sooner than for Sarah and Abraham.

When God says no to our deepest desire, He will help us understand that He has good reason to keep this good thing we want from us. Be it temporary or permanent, we can be given peace about the matter. This is the most precious and lasting gift from God, a mark of His kingdom. When all our distress is eventually swallowed up in peace and rest, God absolutely will do what is good for us to fulfill His purpose in our lives.

I have come to realize that no human can keep something from us that God wants us to have, regardless of the miracles required, including a womb deadened by age or disease. When He does withhold a blessing, He reveals why it is not a good thing for us even though others have it. He loves us so much that He has planned another life for us. Many precious and godly women and men become the spiritual mothers and fathers of God’s children of all sizes, His rich reward for their faithfulness.

To these, Father God has said, “No, my beloved son or daughter, it is not a good thing for you.” A sincere, true surrender to God’s will reveals that He has ordained another path of life for us. We learn to accept what God allows in our lives, including what He denies us. Eventually, we mature to not desire anything God does not want us to have. We hold our hearts’ desires loosely before the Lord until He confirms His direction.

No one except the Lord can grant us, His servants, something that we don’t require, regardless of what we think about it. The desires of the heart are clearly in His hands when we desire above all to follow His path for our lives. When we are servants of the Most High, the good news is that no one can take anything from us that God wants us to have.

We must settle this in our hearts as we continue to walk with the Lord, searching to understand His path for us. God, not humans, is in control, just as Jacob said to Rachel. We finally say “God, if it is your will for me not to have what I want or believe I desperately need, if I can serve you better without it, help me accept it and forgive You. And Lord, along with the answer of NO, please take away the strong desire for this. Grant me peace in this surrender to your path of life for me.”

God will do this for anyone who asks. It may not be a child, but some other strong desire, such as a spouse, health for self or those we love, a change in circumstances, or even bringing peace in this world now. Instead, He brings peace one heart at a time. When we accept the Lord’s rulership, He takes away our desire or grants it in His specific timing for each of us according to our calling.

God surely is most able to give us peace regardless of the outcome, no matter how impossible it may seem in our circumstances. Then, we can rejoice in our portion from God without coveting anything our neighbor has. Our hearts’ surrender is the priority in God’s waiting room, not our understanding or agreement. Sadly, most of us only understand His ways in hindsight.

Our ways are definitely not His ways when we are blinded by the lusts of the flesh. Surrender is not giving up, resigning ourselves to an unhappy life. Surrender is yielding our spirit, soul, and body to Him. It requires what the precious song says, “I surrender all.” God becomes more important than anything else we may desire in our lives. That inner working of understanding and acceptance, the surrender to God’s plan for us, is a longer-lasting lesson than getting what we want when we want it.

We are not to act like spoiled children, as I did, when God refuses our demands. Remember, we do have a Savior who has gone through what we have:

“For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [committing any] sin.” Hebrews 4:15 AMP

Consider that Jesus, Who loved children, may have desired to be married and have children like most men of His time. He lived only a short life, having just 3 and a half years to complete His earthly ministry. We know He did not yield to sinful envy or jealousy, but he had a human side from his mother, Mary. In spite of doing what Father God told Him to do in complete obedience, God said no to Jesus three times, denying His request for God to find another way.

We can rest assured that Jesus gets it. He had a human side, so He could know what it is like for us. Like Him, we have our own Gethsemane experiences, where we struggle to yield, to finally say “Not my will, but Yours be done.” This is an act of our will, regardless of our thoughts or emotions. God is more than able to grant His amazing gift of peace in yielding to Him.

Father God sees our hearts and understands. He takes away the sting of envy and loss, graciously teaching us how to learn of His ways when we are either waiting or denied. God has a Path of Life for each of us. It is most satisfying when we learn to find and live in His will, yielding to His way that He has determined is best for us as well as our purpose in His kingdom.

Consider these words in the following chorus, Nothing Can Happen Outside of God’s Will:

‍ ‍Nothing can happen outside of God’s will.

Trust in His love; be patient, hold still.

The clouds will all vanish, and the sun again shine

If you will make the Father’s will thine.

(author unknown)

May God enable us to believe and trust in this truth.