Attachement

Did you ever experience having a request from God; a request that is holy and pure, a request that many holy people from the Bible had and also many saints, YET, God didn't grant it to you? As if He is not listening or ignoring you? Hannah also did.

In the liturgy yesterday (Wed of 5th week of Great Lent) one of the prophecies was from first chapter from the book of 1st Samuel. Hannah was asking God to have a child from her husband, a pure and holy request. God did command Adam and Eve to be fruitful. But as we read the story, it says about Hannah: "but the Lord shut her womb" (1Sam 1:5). And she wasn't a wicked person, nor her husband. At the contrary, they were godly people. How come that God responds oppositely to her request? What is going on?

We many times when asking for something holy and pure, we think that we should be granted what we asked, because it is holy and pure (a virtue, healing or improvement for a person dear to us, peace, success, etc.). We therefore want it so much and keep asking God to grant it to us. We may even start planning based on what we asked for. We often slip and get attached to what we ask for, that we desire it so much. When this happens, we no longer pray to talk to God whom we love, we no longer seek God Himself, but we are using God as "the magician who can achieve our desires". As if God is the jenny of Aladdin's lamp. Well, that is NOT the case.

When it is the case that we are so attached to the thing we ask for, and in that sense we are driven away from God, as Hannah was so attached to become a mother, God responds saying: "what have I to do with you? mine hour is not yet come" (John 2:4), just as He shut the womb of Hannah.

When God says His time is not yet come, we start wondering "How long, O Lord, do You forget me, for ever? How long do You turn Your face away from me? How long do I put these counsels in my soul, and these sorrows in my heart for the whole day? How long does my enemy exalt over me?" (Psalm 12:1,2). Only then, our attention, and hence our attachment, gradually shift from what we ask for to God and His hour. Only then, we pour our hearts truly in front of God, with tears and confessions, as Hannah did at the House of the Lord [1Sam 1:9].

When Hannah poured herself in front of God, she was freed from the attachment of her desire to be have a baby, as can be seen from her vow to give the baby to God all the days of the child's life. When that happens, the Lord responses saying: "Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me" (Song 6:5)

Only then, Hannah was granted Samuel, the kings anointer. And after Hannah gave Samuel to God, as she vowed, "the LORD visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters" (1Sam 2:21)

Way much more than what we originally asked for, only after our attachment was adjusted.