On Monday, October 16, a group of us met for the first time. We came together to try to find The Next Thing that God has in store for us. We learned that we all had a sense of longing for something more in life, but many of us are confused as to exactly what that may be.
We would love for you to come and journey with us in our weekly meetings. (Monday nights at 7:00 at the church.) But if you are not able to come, you still are invited to go along on this spiritual jouney with us through this, our web blog.
For guidance, we are looking at Hannah’s story, from the first chapter of the book of 1 Samuel. Hannah gives us a framework of how to meet the desires of our hearts, the deep longings that God has given us. We are following Hannah’s example. God gave Hannah the strong need for a child. This child is Samuel, a man who God had determined would play a major role in the history of His people, who would annoint the first two kings of Israel, Saul & David.
Hannah takes six steps to satisfy the desire of her heart. We are challenging ourselves to walk in Hannah’s steps and discover what we long for and how to actualize this in our lives. We are doing this by meeting six weekly challenges. And we challenge you to read Hannah’s story and join us in our jouney.
This first week, we have agreed to meet the challenge to pray to God as Hannah prayed. Verse 10 tells us that Hannah prayed “in bitterness of soul” and “wept in anguish.” In verse 15, she tells Eli, “I have poured out my soul before the Lord.” (New King James Version) We have challenged ourselves to find 30 minutes of quiet time each day this week pray and weep out the pain of our longing. We challenge you to pour out your soul to God with us.
In this honest and emotional praying, will be seeking to hear what God has to tell us about just what we want from Him and for Him. To help us do that, we may be writing our prayers, or keeping notes or a journal of our prayer time. We invite you to do the same.
We are excited about what God will do. We want to share with each other, and with you, what God is doing as we jouney together with Him. Some of us may post responses to this blog, to tell about how God met us in this challenge. We hope this will encourage us and encourage you as we go. We invite you to share in the same way, if God so leads you. You do not have to post you name, just your story.
May God meet you on the road, guiding your path, and may your paths all lead to Him.
–Amy Schwab, for those in search of The Next Thing