Pastors and religious leaders are not always popular. They
may not fully comprehend what God is doing in a person’s life and might even
offend you at times with their insensitive perspective.

There are some that go through a bad experience with
leadership and will make a rash vow to never be vulnerable again with the
person in charge. The fulfillment of godly vision is sometimes short-circuited
and cancelled by a dislike for how you are received by those in place to
process your concerns.

Her genuine sorrow and impassioned plea to God was
misinterpreted as a defect in her character. An assumption of intoxication and
lack of self-control was offered as her comfort.

At this moment, Hannah faced a choice. She could distance
herself from leadership for failing to understand how hurt she was. She could
conclude that everyone including the religious leaders were set on humiliating
her. She could distance herself or she could work through this new conflict.

Was this priest just like Penninah and full of contempt and
ridicule for her? Was Eli just like her husband Elkanah, a man that didn’t
understand her feelings? Or was God using the misunderstanding of a leader to
cause more growth in Hannah?

Penninah was always there in Hannah’s life. Every day she
faced her unending contempt. What are you to do when you feel trapped in a
vortex with someone that doesn’t like you? There are provocations from people
that are based on jealousy, contempt, and resentment.

They can find your weakness and exploit that. The presence
of God is a refuge for the tormented soul and can give enough strength to go
on. This can also be a place where the heart is purified rather than polluted
by the words of your enemies. This is the place that Hannah goes to.

Instead of distancing herself from God who apparently had
judged her with barrenness, she goes to God with a broken heart to appeal to
His merciful nature.

Your restoration will not come because you can prove that
you are treated poorly or because you accept the view that God is your
punisher. Your place of hope is a vision of God being able to help you find a
new day.

Hannah makes a deal with God. If you can give me the desire
of my heart, I will give the desire of my heart back to you. Hannah looked
beyond the natural satisfaction that would come from being a mother. Her
heart’s cry was for God to be blessed with a son that she would bear.

In the realm of godly vision, there must be an element of
sacrifice and worship that aligns with God’s nature. If God can help me in my
most desperate longing, I will give back to Him the highest gift of love that I
can muster. Hannah foreshadows the sacrificial love that would be found in
Mary, mother of Jesus. If God is stirring a vision within you, how willing are
you to lay down your life for His honour?

Your willingness to make a sacrifice of love is the fertile
womb that God brings an impregnation of vision and purpose.

The birth of vision starts with a void. It is a need to be
met or an empty space where a good idea can be cultivated. Vision starts where
a seemingly impossible need can be met. If you have struggled with difficult
circumstances and despaired over the disinterest of others to do something, you
may be ready for vision.

Hannah was such a woman. She comes to God filled with
despair and hopelessness.

Think about the unfairness of Hannah’s plight. She has a
husband that splits his time with the other wife. The other wife has successful
pregnancies and several children, while she has none. Penninah delighted in
humiliating Hannah for being barren. Ancient cultures had a view of barrenness
that was derogatory. It is twice mentioned that the Lord had kept her from
bearing a child.

Barrenness was considered a judgment from God in the
ancient world. Ancient peoples did not yet understand the physiology associated
with fertilization. They viewed the woman as a receptacle for male seed. Rather
than supplying an egg to be fertilized, the woman was seen simply as an
incubator for the child… But this defect would not be seen as simply a
physical problem, since no illness, symptom, or condition was simply physical.
Deity was responsible for creation in the womb, and deity was the one who
opened the womb.[1]

The birth of vision often starts with people that have an
unfair disadvantage. Her husband Elkanah tries to comfort her and makes it
about himself. “Why are you crying? Aren’t I more important to you than
having ten sons?” His lack of understanding adds one more layer of emotional
wounding.

Penninah is against her. Elkanah doesn’t understand and even
God is implicated in her disadvantage. What would you do if faced with so much
alienation?

What is your earliest memory as a child?

Dr. Jeremy Dean had this to say.

“Some argue it’s impossible for us to remember anything
much from before around two to four years of age. Others think our infant memory
can go way back – perhaps even to before birth.”[1]

I have a memory that I verified with my parents.
I remember being carried in my father’s arms across a city street and into a
theatre. I remember the back row of seats. I do not remember having my sisters
with me as I was the one being carried into the building. So where was this
memory occurring and how old was I?

My father worked closely for a time with a travelling
evangelist named Ray Bloomfield. As a baby in arms, I was dedicated to the Lord
at a theatre in Buffalo, NY where Ray was conducting meetings. My first memory
was coming into one of those meetings, possibly the one where I was dedicated
to the Lord. I was less than one year old.

When it comes to God’s calling and the importance of people
that are in our life for a season, we should note that praying for children can
have a profound effect. Just as a midwife assists a woman in pregnancy to
deliver the child and to care for the mother, there are people that become
midwives to birthing vision.

When you know what you are made of, who it
is that has you on the potter’s wheel and the need to be shaped, you are ready
to contain things that belong to eternity.

God places us into strategic pairings and
groupings so he can be the one that synergizes our attempts at holding
agreements. Into these earthenware relationships, incomparable treasure gets
poured in and poured out. 

We are invited to be lifelong learners of
the eternal values.

We are jars of clay, but we contain the death and life of
Jesus in our bodies. The eternal treasure of God is meant to be carried by
vessels like us. Let’s not lose heart when difficulties come, because these
pressures are preparing us to contain eternal glory.

When people get to a point of disagreement, there is always
a question of whether to continue on in this relationship. For those who want
to stay connected, there is a common phrase that ‘we will agree to disagree’.
That is saying that we hold a differing perspective from our partner, but the
value of what we do agree on is greater. We will continue together and let the
disagreement between us be minimized. Maybe the disagreement is even subject to
change by one party, the other or both.

Before you can agree to disagree though, there is a premise
that agreement between parties is valued and expected. Let’s agree to agree.

An often-misquoted passage on agreement is
this one:

While many are drawn to the appeal of
agreement in asking God for an answer, they miss the context. Matthew 18 speaks
largely to disagreement and the chaotic nature of human relationships. The
chapter is an outline on how to make peace in your relationships. If we can
successfully resolve conflicts with another person, then Jesus says he will
join the company of two or three. We can ask God’s help in giving us what is
needed to live in a state of Shalom.

Jesus is the One who synergizes our efforts
to be peacemakers. The asking God in agreement is for what’s needed to bring
about healthy resolves. Jesus shows up intimately with people that commit to
including him as the third strand of the relational rope.

Synergy is:

the extra
energy, power, success, etc. that is achieved by two or more people, companies
or elements working together, instead of on their own.[1]

Like Adam and Eve, people constantly face challenges,
disappointments and inconsistency in themselves and each other. It will through
a mix of human and Divine encounters that are lives are shaped toward God’s
plans and purposes for us.

The reason that is important to find your way into mentoring
and collaborative groupings of people can best be summarized by this word synergy.

Right from the start, God established that two are better
than one. There is a completion that comes from working together on purpose.
Solomon the wise king put it this way:

After listing the benefits of partnership,
Solomon takes it one step further with the idea of adding in a third party. If
you ever braided hair or examined a rope, you know about the weave of three
strands. By the interlocking of hemp fibres, a strong rope is created. If you
only have two strands, the rope is significantly weaker and easier to unravel.

Look at all the effort and challenge ideas
in this passage– alone, endless toil, discontent, existential angst, deprivation,
lack of meaning, miserable, falling down, helpless, shivering, overpowered…
God’s answer to many of these hard words is relationship.

Many have taken this idea of three strands
and said that the intentional inclusion of God into a relationship adds a
strength and a hard-to-break quality to the partnership.

There was a dawning realization that his cousin Jesus was
the One that he was preaching about. It became alarmingly clear when Jesus
stepped forward after John’s preaching and requested to be baptized in the
Jordan.

John the Baptist’s first instinct is to bow out. He had the
humility to see that Jesus should be baptizing him. The student was now the
teacher. The listener was now the proclaimer. As a senior pastor, I am often
moved and humbled by the virtue and wisdom I see in people that I am pastoring
or working with. But I don’t bow out. I bow down to God’s better plan and stay
joined to those he has given me to work with.

John was not the only humble one on that day. Jesus was
willing to stand with sinners and demonstrate that bowing down to God in
repentance was a true path. Jesus talks with the reluctant John and convinces
him that this was God’s plan that he be baptized by him. John was not to bow
out, but instead join Jesus in bowing down to God’s holy plan.

The supernatural voice from Heaven and the descending dove
were God’s yes and amen to what was taking place. Isn’t it incredible when God
adds his affirmation and blessing to humble servants willing to surrender to
Him?

Later in his ministry, Jesus would say this about John the
Baptist.

John the Baptist and Jesus had very special connection to
each other in the plans and purposes of God. John’s influence and impartation
would return to Him in the reverse mentoring of Jesus. John went to his death
knowing that God’s plan would unfold as it was intended. And Jesus knew that he
would not have come without a forerunner to soften hearts and call people back
to God.

If that’s true of John and Jesus, who is imparting God’s
Kingdom plan to you? Who are your mentors and who are you called to influence?
Whom has God joined you to in His unfolding plans?