Hannah Whitall Smith and Me

In working on another writing project, I have obtained as many books written by or about my faith predecessor, Hannah Whitall Smith, the person I have learned more from than any other human being about securing a thriving spiritual walk. One of these books is a compilation of excerpts from her personal letters and journals, which provides some insight into the growing pains she went through to secure her legendary faith.

In the beginning, she suffered a grieved heart over a “feeling” she desperately pleaded for God to give her – evidence that the Holy Spirit lived within her. Other times, she called it a manifestation. I feel certain she anticipated certain spiritual gifts. While in her pain, she never identifies a specific one, she just repeats her despair over and over to the Lord in prayer. She is convinced that the Bible promises her spiritual evidence of the Holy Spirit. She cannot grasp why her pleadings go unanswered. Her journals reveal nothing short of depression. On several occasions, she claims she thinks she will die without it. She simply cannot live being denied a request as pure and holy as hers. She notes how many around her are filled with the very thing she so helplessly desires. Like beating her head against a wall, the same cry goes out, page after page, month after month, year after year, to no result.

I read these 150-year-old journal entries and I know what lies ahead for Hannah’s life and legacy. I know the pinnacle she is yet to reach and how the fruit of her angst will serve thousands, if not millions, coming after her. I notice as she chases after God, God just lets her keep on chasing.

With each page, I marvel that Hannah didn’t know what she already had, which was a faith so vibrant that it wouldn’t stop asking. It may have been denied its desire, but it wouldn’t be denied an audience. Her resolute confidence that God was alive, real, and listening to her compelled her to keep praying. This faith was a manifestation in itself. It had a voice and could not be silenced. She was merely the mouthpiece. She couldn’t stop petitioning even if she had wanted to.

Hannah was married at 19 and gave birth to six children. Rarely does she mention them in the entries selected for this publication. She had what she needed – externally – but was haunted by an emotional experience which was missing from her spiritual life.

I recognize Hannah’s angst in myself. My pleadings also went on excruciatingly for years. My request was for a husband and children, and these were not provided no matter what case I made before God. My grief was over external things, because I had the internal experience Hannah desired. Her grief was over internal things, because she had the external experience I desired. However, four things about our journeys were identical:

1. We were absolutely convinced that our desires were Biblical and holy; therefore, we would not accept that we should stop expecting provision,
2. God allowed us to petition Him, ad infinitum, without granting our requests,
3. We were driven to the point of despair, and
4. We couldn’t comprehend how we were going about life, or our relationship with God, incorrectly.

Hannah and I learned the same lesson, too.

We weren’t going about our relationship with God incorrectly. The Lord desires great faith from His children. He surely had it in both of us. We were never displeasing Him during those seasons of petition. Our selected desires did not displease Him nor did our broken-record prayers.

But we both possessed raging, personal wills. As good, righteous, and pure as our desires were, they were still large enough to be idols to us. As long as any “thing” had its grip on us, then God didn’t. We thought our desires were necessary to proceed in our spiritual walks; therefore, we could not imagine living without our prayers fulfilled, but God insisted we come to Him, for Him, without anything else.

He had to exhaust our personal will. Period. And that’s the truth.

If we labor in what we perceive as negotiations with God, either we give up on God, because God doesn’t cave to our request, or we refuse to give up until the negotiation itself is utterly exhausted. God merely holds up His end of the tug-of-war until our human hands are so shredded that we let go. It is then the core decision behind the whole saga comes into view – Do we still want to be God’s devoted follower even if a future with Him doesn’t contain the fulfillment of our desire? What is worth more to us – Him or it?

When I say that God doesn’t negotiate, I am not referring to basic prayer petitions, which fill our daily conversations with Him. I am speaking of God refusing to provide us our idols when those desires have become things that God now “owes” us. I am talking about entitlements.

It is hard to perceive that our entitlements are ungodly because the backstory behind how we came to feel entitled is accurate. You may have a proven track record of living a Biblical lifestyle, denying temptation, or serving others generously. You may actually be profoundly pleasing to God, in all the ways you have critiqued your intentions and come to the conclusion that you deserve to be blessed. Do you recall God saying to Satan, “Have you considered my servant, Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil,” (Job 1:8, NIV)? And we know what happened to Job.

A sense of entitlement is the thing God frowns upon. Despite being pleasing to God, Job was not entitled to a life free of hardship. Hannah was not entitled to emotional evidence that the Holy Spirit lived inside her. I am not entitled to a husband and children. Neither are you entitled to the thing you feel God owes you.

God is entitled to our adoration. All of it. Even the adoration we are reserving for a comfortable life or the emotional high of speaking in tongues or a family waiting at home for us. God is entitled to the adoration we are reserving for a more glamorous job or a better body or a successful social media presence.

Hannah wrote in her journal, “I have been so full of my reasonings that His voice could scarcely make itself heard in my heart.”

But she eventually heard His voice. Then she wrote to her son…

I once suffered a great deal because I looked for joy as a thing by itself, and never found it. And that discouraged me. But now I never think whether I have joy or not. I have Christ, and that is enough. I am glad that I have Him, and this gladness, I believe, is the true Christian joy. It is certainly something to be happy about to know that we have such a Savior and such a salvation, to know that we are heirs of God and are going towards our glorious inheritance. So, give up looking for joy and just take all the comfort you can out of the gifts the Lord has already given you and be glad for your salvation and rejoice in Christ.

I couldn’t agree more. All of the things that obstruct your view of Jesus are what is hindering your wholeness and happiness. This is the secret contained in the Christian classic Hannah wrote, “The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life.”

I love her words: “I never think whether I have joy or not. I have Christ, and that is enough.” I, also, rarely think about not having my previous desire. But I perpetually think about having Jesus’s undivided attention. And this reality for me, is truly, plenty to keep my happy.

 

Copyright © 2019 by D.M. Harrington