God's Starting Point

The students chuckled as the professor walked into the room. Did he not notice what was happening with his shirt? As they watched him make his way to the podium, they had trouble containing their amusement. How could such a brilliant man fail to button his shirt correctly? As the professor addressed the class, he acknowledged the issue with the shirt. He had put the first button into the second button hole. “You see, if you don’t start in the right place, you’ll never end up in the right place.” A simple mistake at the beginning can result in great embarrassment by the end. Sometimes, the only way to fix the problem is to start all over again.

The beginning of 1 Samuel gives us an opportunity to ask, “What is our starting point?” We often start with something that feels like a strength in our lives. We have this or we’ve done that or we’re good at this or we know them. These things give us a sense of value and power. They combat our creeping sense of inadequacy. What we don’t usually realize—until it’s too late—is that starting with ourselves is like missing the first button on our shirt. We never genuinely start with God until we finish starting with ourselves. We don’t want to come to the end of ourselves because we fear there will be nothing there. We refuse to admit our inability because we think we can do this. Maybe we can. But in the most crucial areas, we can’t.

“God’s tendency is to make our total inability his starting point.” This statement from Dale Ralph Davis is evident when we zoom in on the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1 and when we zoom out on the whole story of redemption. Here, a barren woman, devastated by her circumstances, has come to the end of herself. Her safety nets have been shredded. She has no fallback options. But here, in the place of utter desperation, the song of God’s rescue rings out. Our total inability is the prelude to the symphony of God’s sufficiency. In blessing barren Hannah with a child, the Lord again reveals the pattern of His redemption. In our hopelessness, the Lord gives birth to hope. In our despair, the Lord gives birth to joy. Salvation is nothing less than God doing the impossible, bringing life out of death. Who but God could turn a dead end into a fountain of life? If that’s the way the Lord works, why do we spend so much energy trying to avoid His starting point? Next time we button our shirt, we should remember: If we don’t start in the right place, we’ll never end up in the right place. Lord, help us to be honest about our inability and to be bold in crying out for Your grace!