Hannah personal study

FOR PERSONAL STUDY:

SOME HELPFUL THOUGHTS ABOUT HANNAH AND HER PRAYER - By Dr. John White

'...the importance of prayer about your personal needs...You must never stop appealing to God about your sorrows and heartaches.....We shall never outgrow the need for childlike prayer for personal needs.'

'Nothing hurt Hannah more than the annual feast of tithes. The Israelites..reserved one tenth of their produce to offer to the Lord at Shiloh...With other, Elkanah would give his sacrifice to the priest to be placed upon the altar. After this, the rest of the tithe, having been offered to God, would be eaten in the presence of God with much rejoicing by the family who made the offering. It was God's portion, but God invited them to feast with him. But for Hannah there was no joy! As Elkanah distributed God's portion of meat to the family, he would load Peninnah's plate with large quantities to divide among her young children. The single portion that Hannah received was a painful reminder of her childlessness. Penninah lost no opportunity to rub salt into the wound.'

‘In the long Bible story of kings, battles, sieges and the exploits of the great, this story tells of a God who cares for the poor and downtrodden, of a God to whom no hurt is too trivial to demand his care. God is indeed the God of the sparrows and lilies. His response to Hannah's grief is characteristic...This forms the theme of Hannah's final song of praise.

‘Hannah's child was to be an unusual figure in history. By sheer moral and spiritual power, he was in one lifetime to cleanse idolatry from Israel, to exalt the only true God throughout the realm, and to establish a monarchy. Unusual circumstances were needed to produce such a man. Samuel was to be moulded from an early age by Eli's moral guidance and the voice of God. When in her desperation Hannah vowed that any child given to her would be given back to God, she little knew the consequences her vow would have. But God knew... He allowed her to come to the pitch of desperation for this very reason.'

‘God whispers to us in our pleasures but shouts to us in our pain' (C. S. Lewis)

The same pain that produced a Samuel, produced a transformed Hannah... After the birth of Samuel.... she would laugh at her pain. Laugh at it not only because God had answered her, but because it had driven her into the arms of God. ‘I never know how to measure pain, but my heart swells with joy, a joy too great to express, at the thought of the trials my wife and I have gone through. What I have gained from them in sheer treasure makes the suffering a trivial price to pay. I hate pain but I would gladly undergo the same pain again for more of the same treasure. I cannot quite laugh at the memory of the pain. I can certainly smile wonderingly at the harvest of joy I have reaped.

‘Personal suffering is never meaningless for the child of God....He may change the course of history through your pain, but you may never discover its wider meaning…

‘You may not know why you suffer… you must always bring your suffering to him and ask him to take it away… You may be sure (through Hannah's story) that God could have plans to do something through your pain that extends far beyond your own life… What you can certainly experience is a deepening relationship with him. For you can be sure that your pain has a divine purpose in your life. It is divine surgery that, if you respond to it appropriately, will heal and correct defects in your Christian growth. But it is essential that you respond with trust in the mercy and goodness of God. No bitterness or rebellion must be allowed to cloud your vision of him, even when he seems not to answer. Otherwise the pain designed to deepen and enrich your relationship with him might have the opposite effect as you allow yourself the luxuries of self-pity and doubt.'

•Longing is always understood clearly by God....He wants people in their suffering to come to him. For he himself is the gift that we really need.'

•Can the God of the heavens really care about my little needs? Does a mother care about the scratched finger of a 3-year old? Great as he is, he is also tender and gentle. And SINCE HE IS AWARE OF THE SUBTLEST NUANCE OF PAIN IN OUR HEARTS WE NEED NOT HIDE IT FROM HIM. WE MAY FEEL ANGER OR RESENTMENT TOWARD HIM, BUT, WHETHER OUR RESENTMENT IS JUSTIFIED OR NOT, IT IS BETTER EXPRESSED THAN HIDDEN. DOES IT SHOCK YOU ONCE YOU SEE HIM TO SEE HOW HORRENDOUS YOUR THOUGHTS REALLY ARE? DO NOT DISGUISE THEM, BUT CONFESS THEM TELL HIM OF YOUR HURTS..AND KNOW THAT WHEN YOU POUR OUT YOUR HEART BEFORE HIM AS HANNAH DID, HE WILL BE LISTENING INTENTLY, UNDERSTANDING PROFOUNDLY.'

‘Peace came to Hannah. Eli's words of comfort were God's way of telling her that he had heard. Weeks may pass before she is pregnant, but for her the issue was settled.'

‘Vows attached to prayers are relative rarities in the Bible. Hannah's prayer is almost unique in this respect. Yet there can be little doubt that the prayer was divinely inspired: its consequences for Israel's history are hard to exaggerate.’

Samuel belonged to God because God gave him to her. The real lesson is that you acknowledge that everything God gives you owe to him. This was all Hannah was really doing.