Pressing In

I heard someone compare the prophet Samuel’s mother, Hannah, to those women who press in prayer. She described those women as the "Hannah's who don't give up!" Hannah wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. She pressed in. Her intensity was so great in prayer that nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter what people said, or thought about her. She pressed into God until she received the answer. The interesting thing is that from the very beginning, God had prepared Samuel, one of the greatest prophets, to be conceived and born of Hannah. What if she hadn’t asked? What if she hadn’t pressed in? What if she had given up just a little bit short of conception, or maybe just a little bit short of the birth of her promise?

The definition of faith is confident assurance in who God says He is, and that He will reward us as we seek Him. If I am really honest with myself, there have been times when I have had more confident assurance in failure, or lack, or the disease, or the belief that God won’t show up for ME. You always have faith in something. I will either have faith in fear or failure, or I will have faith in God. You can be just as confidently assured that you will fail, as you can be that God will answer your prayers. You get to choose.
Isn’t that what Jesus was saying when He is talking about moving mountains and telling the disciples to just cast those huge immovable objects into the sea? He never mentions the size of the mountain or the fact that it was totally impossible for it to move. He didn’t say have confident assurance in the mountain to move. He said: “Have confident assurance in God.” That is the bottom line isn’t it? Like Hannah, I’m going to take my case to the only One who can help. And I refuse to give up pressing in and stopping one inch short of His answer.