Givens and Not Givens

Whoever we are, whatever our season or circumstances of life, we all have those things for which we long, but which God in His infinite wisdom has chosen not to give to us, or those things we wish we didn’t have, but can’t get rid of.

This topic of “Givens and Not Givens” is addressed in a recent episode of the Elizabeth Elliot Podcast (which, by the way, I highly recommend.) As I listened to her illustrations, I was reminded of two women from Scripture: Hannah and Rachel.

Both experienced the unfulfilled longing for a son, both bore the tauntings of the husband’s other wife who seemed to bear child after child just to spite her. (One of the many reasons why God designed marriage to be monogamous.) Both were desperate to bear a child of their own, but each dealt with it differently.

Hannah’s story is found at the beginning of 1 Samuel, where we see her quietly bearing the taunts of her “adversary” and the well-meaning platitudes of a husband who appears not to have understood why she wanted a child so badly. She bears the ache and sorrow alone, until it seems she could bear it no longer.

On a visit to Shiloh, where the tabernacle was, Hannah slips away from the festivities and goes to pour out her heart to the Lord. She prayed silently, though in the fervency of her prayers her lips moved as she prayed. She gave her burden completely to the Lord, vowing that if He gave her a son, she would give him back to the Lord to serve Him “all his days.”

Out of the depth of her longing came a depth of surrender to the will of God, even to the point of being willing to give up the child for whom she had so longed.

There is no indication that she would have told anyone about her time of prayer before the Lord, and although she spoke with Eli, she did not seek him out to ask him to intercede with God for her. Her burden was only known to those who knew her best, because she could not hide her sorrow. She rather sought to take her longing and disappointment to God alone.

She took her unfulfilled longings to the One who withheld what she longed for. After all, God was the only One who could give her the ability to conceive a child, since it was God who had shut up her womb (1 Samuel 1:5)

Rachel, on the other hand, is quite different. In Genesis 29, Jacob is tricked into marrying Rachel’s sister, Leah, instead of Rachel, whom he loved. To remedy the situation, Jacob’s new father-in-law lets him marry Rachel too.

One quick note on this: God never says that polygamy is good or even acceptable. When addressing marriage, God always references one husband and one wife. People often stumble over the fact that many of the men God highlights throughout the Old Testament had more than one wife, but we must remember that the “heroes” of the Bible are sinners, just like you and me. The fact that they had more than one wife does not mean that it was right or that God condoned it, and we have God’s own words on the subject to the contrary: He clearly expects marriage to be monogamous and permanent.

Rachel found herself stuck in a horribly dysfunctional family situation (much like Hannah’s.) Her sister Leah began having children, but Rachel was still childless. By the time Leah had her fourth son, Rachel’s desperation had become acute, and she said to her husband:

“Give me children, or else I die.” (Genesis 30:1)

Her husband’s answer points us to the real issue:

“Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?” (v.2)

Rachel was expecting her husband to fix a situation that only God could change. As Ecclesiastes 7:13 reminds us:

“Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which He hath made crooked?”

You see, when we are wrestling with the “not givens” of life, we can easily begin to blame people or circumstances instead of acknowledging that the real source of our perceived lack is God Himself.

I think we often avoid attributing our “not givens” to God, because we know that if God allowed or ordained it, we have no reason to complain. We know that God is good, holy, perfect, that He cannot make mistakes, and that He loves us with an everlasting, self-sacrificing love. Knowing all this about God, how can we complain about that which His love and wisdom have withheld?

But we want to complain. We want to vent our grief, our anger, our bitterness at someone. Since we can’t vent those sinful feelings to God without confessing and forsaking them, we often shift the blame somewhere else.

This thinking can be subtle. It can seem as innocent as a single girl’s quip about her “prince charming” riding a turtle or wandering around lost somewhere. These kinds of jokes (although funny) shift the cause of singleness away from where it truly lies: with God.

The “not givens” of my life are a part of God’s “good, and acceptable, and perfect” will for me. (Romans 12:2) While I blame anyone or anything else for them, I will be angry, bitter, and deeply unhappy. But when, like Hannah, I pour my longing, my grief, my fear, even my complaints out before God, yielding all to Him, I find peace, joy, hope, and fulfillment.

I am reminded of Mary of Nazareth, who was given something for which she had not asked: she was going to bear the Messiah—as a virgin. The potential consequences of this gift were serious, indeed, but even facing the unknowns of how her family, community, and husband-to-be would react, Mary responded to God’s unexpected “given” with simple, humble, trusting obedience:

“Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy word.” (Luke 1:38)

Whether you are wrestling with “givens” or “not givens” today, the remedy remains the same: pour them out to God, acknowledge that they come from His loving hand, and choose to live in trust and hope, knowing that He is good.

“My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him.” (Psalm 62:5)