Prayer of Hannah

All of us know that one of the most important activities in our relationship with God is prayer. That we are supposed to talk to God every day. And we have different kinds of prayer. There's formal prayer. When we get on our knees, there's prayer where we may be walking or talking to God while we're doing something else. But we're supposed to interact with God all the time. And yet, daily prayer is a struggle for a lot of people. Now, no one likes to admit it. But it is a daily struggle for a lot of people. Or our prayers, we may pray every day, but you have the sleeping time prayer where you sort of pray and you fall asleep while you're praying before you go to bed at night.

Or you go through the day and realize you really haven't prayed. Or you snatch three minutes of prayer to start your day. And rush through the day without prayer. And of course, days don't work out very well when you do that. So prayer is a major issue in our lives, and yet, at many times, it can be a struggle for Christians. And like I said, we don't like to admit it. But I hear that all the time. How do I have a more meaningful prayer life?

People keep prayer journals. What do I do? I need to write down so I can remember what to even go say to God sometimes. So people deal with, we all deal with our busy lives. And the fact that prayer is foundational.

The Bible contains a lot of principles about prayer. And we think of the model prayer that Jesus gave. Usually when we talk about prayer, we go there. We bring down how He said to pray. But you know, the Bible also contains something else. And I'm going to be probably, I don't know, once a year.

I want to go through prayers in the Bible. I don't mean just instructions on prayer. I mean actual prayers. It's amazing. The Bible is filled with prayers. Kings and poor people. Men, women, old people, young people, rich people, poor people. Every stage of life you can imagine. Every station of life you can imagine. There's a prayer in the Bible. Somebody praying. And in that prayer we find lessons, not only in the human element of it. It's amazing. Some prayers are done in anger.

Some prayers are done in anguish. Some prayers are done in joy. And of course, a lot of the book of Psalms are prayers that were put to music. They're prayers put to music. So the Bible is actually full of prayers. So what I want to do today is I'm going to go through one prayer. Actually it's two prayers, but the same person. Two prayers given by the same person. And what we can learn just from this. Like I said, I would like to once a year just go through a couple of prayers. Here's a prayer. Here's what the person did.

Here's what they said. Here's why they did it. Here's how God responded. God can have a very positive response to prayer. God can have a negative response to prayer. Of course, one of our hardest things to realize is sometimes he responded. The answer was no. We always think the answer has to be yes. So we're always struggling with, well, God did the answer.

And God said, yeah, he did. The answer is no. So we're going to look at a prayer that I find this person fascinating. There are certain people in the Bible you relate to, certain people harder to relate to. This is the person I relate to. I find this person very interesting. Let's go to 1 Samuel. I'm going to read a lot of this story here at the beginning of the sermon simply because I really want to set the stage.

And this is written in such detail. Certain parts of the Bible are in a lot of detail. We've been going through the book of Judges and the monthly Bible study. And the Wednesday night we went through the first four Judges. Although my wife had for me later when we got home, she said, you know, you went through the lineage of Caleb and Othniel. I said, yes. She said, I have no idea what she was trying to say.

So I said, okay, well, maybe next time I'll just go back and just map that out a little bit so people can understand what I was trying to say. What I was trying to do was rush through it to get something more important. And when she doesn't understand, I know half of everybody else didn't, so... because she usually keeps up with... because usually what I'm doing, I've talked over with her, you know, so she sort of knows where I'm going. She says, why in the world were you trying to say?

So next time, we'll just take a few minutes, okay, and map out what I was trying to say. So we come to the end of the Book of Judges, or the time of the Judges. This is Samuel. Samuel was the last of the Judges, before they began to have kings. And so what we have here is this...

priest who has a wife. Actually, it says in verse 2, he has two wives. The name of one was Hannah. And the second was Padilla. So here we have Elkanah. Now, Elkanah is a priest, a man of God. He has two wives. Now, when we go through here, we'll see why he had two wives. I mean, he didn't have two wives just because he wanted to have two wives. He has two wives for a reason. Because it says at the end of verse 2, Padilla had children, but Hannah had no children. You know, when a woman could not have children, he was perfectly acceptable by the law for the man to take a second wife so that his family name could be carried on. Now, he could divorce the first wife. He could throw her out. He had to take care of her and treat her like a wife. And in this case, Elkanah loved her. So it did say he wouldn't get another woman because he didn't love her. He had a second wife because she couldn't have children. So it says, verse 3, This man went up from his city yearly to worship and sacrifice the Lord of hosts in Shiloh, and also the sons of Eli, Hoth, and Phineas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And whenever the time came for Elkanah to make an offering, he would give portions to Padilla, his wife, to all of her sons and daughters. But to Hannah, he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb. Now, it is hard, I think, I mean, you can think... I think most women here would know, if you were in a situation where you wanted to have children and couldn't, how devastating that would be. Just absolutely devastating to be a woman and want to have children and can't. In this society, it's even worse. Because in this society, a woman's value is seen as a member of a family, and she produces children.

You know, today it would be hard not to have a child, but this was seen almost for the woman. She would feel like she was an absolute failure in life. That her job, given by God, was to produce children and to raise those children. That was what God had given her to do. She couldn't even do what God wanted her to do in life. So this is an overwhelming, overwhelming feeling of failure. It's hard for us to imagine what... I mean, like I said, I think most of you women could imagine it. I think for guys...well, we'll see you in a minute, even El Tida couldn't understand it.

And he had a wife and kids. He had another wife he really loved. So she is just devastated by this. And her rival...that's interesting...her rival... This woman held it over her that she could not have children. Okay. He may love you. I can't imagine having two women in the same house fighting over the guy. Okay? That's a sure way to be unhappy, guys. You think, if I could have two wives, I'd be happy? I can't even imagine that. Her rival...you know, she knew that he loved her more. You know, you can't hide that. He loved her more. But I get to have all the kids. I'm more valuable. All the neighbors know I'm the better wife.

God knows I'm the better wife. Look how much God has blessed me, you can imagine what's said. God blessed me. There must be something wrong with you. You must not be righteous. I mean, the things that must have gone on are the things that Hannah would have thought. Her rival also provoked her severely to make her miserable because the Lord had closed her womb. So not only is she in sorrow over the fact that she can't have children, she's living with a woman who her husband keeps producing kids. She's a baby machine.

And every time she says, there's a new one in here, and you don't have any, every time she saw the little kids running around, it's like, oh, you know, I'm really your mommy, don't pay any attention to Aunt Hannah. You can imagine what's going on here with the jealousy level that would be happening. I love what Okada says. This is so, this is so male, okay?

Verse 8. Verse 7 says, So it was year by year when she went up to the house of the Lord, that she provoked her, therefore she wept and did not eat. She was so depressed she wouldn't even eat. That Okada, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat?

And why is your heart creamed? Am I not better than ten suns? Yeah. That is what I'd say. Hey, you got me, babe. What more do you want? So it didn't help that her husband wasn't exactly the most sensitive guy in the world, okay? He said, you got me and I love you. I mean, I do everything for you. Yeah, but I don't have any children. There's another woman in this house that's a baby machine. And this is devastating to me. So Hannah rose after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting by the seat of the doorpost of the tabernacle of the Lord.

She was a bitterness of soul and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish. It is amazing in this passage how many, how the description of her emotional state. Now we don't exactly know who wrote Samuel, but tradition says it was Samuel, which would make sense. He's describing what Mom told him she went through. See, there's something here so personal about this woman's story. It's like, wow, this is an awful lot of detail about how she feels and what she's going through. Then she made a vow and said, O Lord of Hosts, if you indeed look on the affliction, here's her first prayer, if you will look on the affliction of your maidservant, and remember me and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.

I wish you'll notice how many times she said maidservant. We'll talk about that in a minute. That's real important. And it happened that she continued praying before the Lord that Eli watched her mouth. So she goes up to the tabernacle, Chris Sullivan's Temple is in Bilya, she goes to the tabernacle, she's praying. She's praying so earnestly that she goes to God and says, I tell you what, God, if you give me a child, I will dedicate him to you.

It will be your child, and you can keep him here at the tabernacle. And she's saying it in her lips are moving. I walk around the house all the time talking to myself.

Especially if I'm working on a sermon or something, I walk around and I'll be making a cup of coffee and people say, are you talking to yourself? Yeah. I figure it's a good company. Her lips are moving. She's praying to God, but nothing's coming out because it's happening in her mind between her and God. She's in a very close relationship with God here. She knows she's in the presence of God. She's at the tabernacle. She knows God's listening. She says, this is what I'll do. Now, she's been praying year after year, and nothing's happening.

Now, here she is in anguish. Here she is praying. And what happens next? You think of what this woman's going through. What happens next, even? It's just as bad. Now, he had a spoke in her heart, verse 13, on her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore, Eli thought she was drunk. Eli's the high priest. This is the man of God. Okay? He looked at her. He misperceived the entire situation. This judge is the entire situation and believes that she's drunk.

So, Eli says in verse 14, how long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you. Now, think of what could have gone through he and his mind. She's in prayer. She's in the middle of praying to God about something that says she's in anguish. She's crying. She's distressed. And the man that's supposed to be the greatest man of God on earth, walks up to her and says, falsely accuses her of being drunk. And says, put away your wine. You know, you wonder why she just didn't stand up and say, God, I'm out of here.

You talk about injustice. You talk about unfair. You won't let me have kids. And then you let the guy that's supposed to be your representative falsely accuse me of the tabernacle? At this point, those people would have gone in a certain direction. Hannah did not. This is what makes Hannah so amazing. When he explored why she didn't, Hannah did not.

What she says next is verse 15, but Hannah answered and said, no, my Lord, very respectful. No, my Lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman. Now, maidservant, a slave. First of all, she comes to God, and over and over again, says, it says to God, I am here as your slave.

Now she turns to the man who just falsely accuses us, but I'm just your slave. I'm just your maidservant. I'm just pouring out my soul to God. That's why I'm here. Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief, I have spoken until now. Eli listened to this, was so moved by this, that he literally, the next statement is a prayer. Go at peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition, which you have asked of him. Go at peace. God is going to take care of you. Go at peace. God is going to answer your prayer. Now, why did he respond that way? Because of her attitude.

Now, remember, this is all happening in the context of her prayer, of her pouring out her soul here before God. And she said, let your maidservant find favor in your sight. So the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. She walks away from pouring out her soul before God in anguish, and being falsely accused, and she feels better.

She said, I'm not sad anymore. Then he rose early in the morning and worshipped before the Lord, and returned and came to the house of Rehma, and Al-Qaeda knew him and his wife, and the Lord remembered her. So it came to pass, in the process of time that Hannah conceived or bore a child, and called his name Samuel, because I have asked for him from the Lord. Samuel literally means, heard of God. His name was God heard me. God heard me.

Remarkable prayer, but the prayer is delivered under the most distressing conditions you could imagine. And God answered the prayer. Now, of course, Samuel is her son. And Samuel is the major character here throughout most of the book we call First Samuel. But the first two chapters are all by his mother.

All it has to do with her prayer, because there's another prayer she's going to give here. And all it has to do with her interaction with God in her prayer, and the type of person she was, and how that came out in her dynamics with God. Let's go to 1 Samuel 2.18.

What we find, if you read the rest of chapter 1, is that after Samuel was born, every year when the Alkana goes up to the tabernacle, she says, No, I'll stay here with the boy, because I told God I would have to give him to him. Now, what's amazing here is Hannah is respected so much by her husband. You can imagine this is her husband's firstborn son by the woman he loved. Okay? This is the firstborn son by the woman he loved. And he told her, if you believe this is right, you do it. How many guys would do that? You think about it. Your firstborn son, from the woman you love, and she says, I'm going to give him away, and you say, you trust her so much, you say, if that's what you think is best, okay.

See, there's not about Hannah here that's amazing, the type of person she is, and her prayer here exhibits some very important things we need to learn, that we need to be like her. So what happens is, it says she waited till he was weaned. In ancient Israel, it was common that a child was weaned after their third birthday. So for three years, she took care of Samuel, raised her little baby. Now three years old is still a baby, right? Well, we go to chapter 2, verse 18. So she brings him to the tabernacle, this little three-year-old baby, and leaves him with Eli. But Samuel, ministered before the Lord, even as a child, wearing linen ephod. In other words, that's the dress of a priest. So here's the little guy dressed up like a priest. Three years old, five years old, eight years old. Everybody goes to Shiloh, and there's little Samuel, help of the priest, know what he's supposed to do.

This is the environment he's raised in. Moreover, his mother, verse 19, used to make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearless sacrifice. And Eli would bless, okay, that his wife would say, The Lord gave you descendants from this woman, for the loan that was given to the Lord, that they would go to their own home. Every year there was a ceremony where all the people there at the tabernacle saw Hannah and, okay, and I'm blessed because of the gift of Samuel.

Verse 21. And the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters, meanwhile the child Samuel grew before the Lord. Now, from this point on, the story is about Samuel.

The mother took him to a point, and it gave him the gun. Which tells us something about all of our children. All the children we have are basically gods, and we get to have them for a while. But, you know, all children are gods, right? Every child is god's god. So, here we have this story. Now, what can we learn from this? From her prayer? What can we learn from her prayer, what she went through? Three important points I want to go through today. Very simple. Very simple. The first one is, when feeling crushed by what seems to be unfair or unjust situations, we must respond. Now, this is anti-intuitive, so this isn't going to be what you think. When feeling crushed by what seems to be unfair or unjust, we must respond with a humble attitude towards God. Now, that's counterintuitive. When I am being treated unfairly, my initial reaction always is, that's unfair. Right? Just like a little kid. When I see a justice, and I have a justice done to me, my initial reaction always is, that's not just. That's my initial reaction every time.

That's not right!

What's amazing about Hiddah is you don't see that in her approach to God at all. Her approach to God is, humble worship towards God.

Even in her despair, you don't see any blame towards God. You don't see any blame towards her husband. You do see her hurt by her rival.

But what is her attitude through all of it? I have your hand made. I have your servant. I have your daughter. Her whole attitude is focused as God and her worship towards God.

Unjust things, unfair things, happen to every one of us every day.

And I see more people destroyed because of something unfair or unjust that happened to them than I have by anything else. In fact, in the Church, I see more people destroyed because someone mistreated them in the Church than by anything else. Once someone in the Church mistreats us or hurts us, there's nothing wrong with us. It just eats away us. Let's face it, the normal human reaction of Hannah would be, Al-Qaeda is an idiot.

Aren't I work-tech zones? Have you seen me in my bathing suit lately?

You see what I mean? What would be the normal reaction?

Hers was not that! Or it would be, God, you're unfair.

99% of all the women I know have children. I don't.

She's a young woman at this point. Very young. I don't. You know, God, you're so unfair to me. You see none of that. What you see in the face of all this... Eli accusing her of being drunk.

Most people would have run out, they'd jump up and run out. They wouldn't even have talked to him. You know, I have to put up with this. Right? She had such a hopeful sense of worship towards God. That motivated everything she did.

A hopeful attitude of worship towards God.

If we don't have that, all the injustices of life, all the unfairness, will carry it around like a knapsack with rocks in it. Until it breaks her back.

We'll mostly destroy ourselves and we become bitter. Once you are bitter, you put up a wall between you and God. Once we become bitter, we actually put up a wall between us and God because, you know what we eventually think? It's your fault that I... that this is unfair. Right? It's your fault that this bad thing has happened to me. It's your fault that I was in the car wreck. It's your fault that my husband thinks he's, you know, the most wonderful guy in the world. And here I am hurting. Right? It's your fault. And that's what we do. It's your fault, God, because my wife doesn't... isn't exactly what I wanted to be. It's your fault because I don't have the right job. It's your fault because I don't have enough money. It's your fault that, you know, my transmission went out. It's just not fair. And so what we do is we get bitter. We begin to see life that way. Jesus gave a very interesting parable. Then we'll come back here, the first day of your life. Let's go to Luke 18. Luke 18.

You don't see any of that in this woman. What you see is, I am your maid servant, O Lord. I am yours. I am anguish. I hurt. And I present that to you.

She wanted comfort. She wanted help. Luke 18. This parable... I'm going to start in verse 2 because this parable of itself doesn't seem to make sense. Verse 2 says, there was a certain city of judges, and Jesus was giving this, who did not fear God, who regard me. Now there was a widow in that city, and she came to Him saying, get justice for me from my adversary. So here's a situation that's similar to Kenneth's. But this is a widow, an older woman, has no influence in society, and somebody is oppressing her.

Somebody has taken away her rights. Somebody is keeping her, is actually hurting her. And by law, she's in the right. That's what's very important here. She is in the right. She goes to the judge, and when it says it's an unjust judge, because a just judge would have said, wow, that's horrible, and would have heard her case. It ruled in her favor. That's what a just judge would have done. But this judge would not. And he would not for a while, because he was unjust. He didn't care. He got some money. This is too small a case for me. Give me a bribe. I'll take care of it. Don't have any money. Come on. I'm too important for this.

And so he would not listen to her case. But afterward, he said within himself, though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she wearies me.

Now, the disciples had to be a little bit confused at this point. Are you comparing God to an unjust judge? I mean, who's the hero in this story? Who's the hero? Who's making the point? Who's the person we're supposed to zero in on? And what we do is we zero in on the unjust judge, and that's not the person we're supposed to zero in at all. It's the widow. Look at verse 1.

This is the point. The point is, keep praying. Don't give up. So Jesus tells the story. And there's a woman. And the unjust judge will listen to her. She's right. She's being oppressed. There's an injustice happening, and he goes on and on and on. And she just keeps showing up at the courthouse. And he keeps saying, Balaam, get her out of here. And she just shows up again. And finally he says, okay, okay, I'll go take care of this.

So is that what we're supposed to do to God? If we just pester him long enough, he'll say, okay, just, if you'll leave me alone, I'll take care of it. No, that's not the point. Look at verse 6. Then the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God, okay, hear what he said. He said, this persistent person is driving me crazy, so I'll do it. He said, Now let's hear what God says. Okay, this is how God looks at this. Here's how God looks at us. And shall God God avenge his own elect, who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them? The point is, okay, God doesn't respond in the same timeframe that we think he should.

I don't know about you, but when I get anointed, I expect healing within 30 seconds. After two minutes, it's God, okay, God, I've waited two minutes here. That's the level of righteousness you just don't see every day. So it's time for you to hurry up and get this done. Okay, that's my response to God.

Okay, I've been patient. But, you know, how this patient stuff is, I have problem with patience, okay? This patient stuff, you don't be like that long, right? You don't be... how long?

You know, it's long suffering. I keep looking for a group translation that'll make it short suffering, but it doesn't say that.

So the point is, God will intervene, even though sometimes we have to wait. Sometimes a wait could be years. There's some things that don't get fixed till Christ comes back. There's some things that don't get fixed till Christ comes back. But we want Him to fix it now. And He says, just wait. So He says that we are to keep praying. And remember, the purpose of this variable is don't lose heart. Have faith, keep praying, and as we pray in this attitude of humble worship, I come before you as your maidservant. I come before you as your manservant. I come before you as your son, as your daughter. Humbly, okay, I don't know when you're going to fix this, but I'm in your presence, therefore, I'm okay.

See, that's what Hannah did when she went to the tabernacle, and then Eli says, God grant you this. God needs to give you this. This is amazing, the attitude you have. What did she say she did? She went back and she wasn't sad anymore. Now, she wasn't pregnant yet, either. She wasn't pregnant yet, but she wasn't sad anymore. Did that mean the trial go away? No. Did that mean she still was hurt by it? Yes. Does that mean three days later, when her rival made a little snide remark, that she looked at Elkanah and he just rolled his eyes in the back of his head and said, But I love you. That really makes me feel good right now. Right? But something had changed. She'd been in the presence of God, and that humble worship had opened her up for God to come in, which is the purpose of prayer. I think the purpose of prayer is for God. I have a grocery list. I found out it's not true. My grocery list isn't why I pray. It used to be. Okay, let me give you a list. Number 73 on the list. You're not doing real good with that one.

That's not why we pray. We come with humble worship to open up for God to do something. And it's not always on our list. Next time that he just hears the list, he doesn't say, Man, that's a mess. Throw that list away. I get a whole other list for you. Oh, but number 25 is really important. No, it's not.

It's to open up and let God come in. And that's what she did.

It wasn't easy for her. The point is, God isn't going to fix every injustice in your life. And that's specifically what he had a feeling with. It's unfairness. I can't have a baby. And injustice. I have a woman that just hammers me all the time. A husband that doesn't understand. And the high priest falsely accuses me. That's about as unfair and unjust as you can get.

And you don't see it turn her bitter. You don't see it turn her against God. Because she had opened herself up in this humble worship. Notice what it says in verse 8. Jesus says, I tell you that he, the King of God, will avenge them speedily. In other words, God's going to bring about justice. And in the course of human history, it's actually going to happen very quickly.

But we live in this compact time, because at the time it's so different than God's. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth? Do we really believe in all this unfairness and injustice? Do we really believe God is going to take care of things?

Or do we open ourselves up to let him come in? And in doing so, we have a different viewpoint. We have a different attitude. What is your response? Let me think about it.

When you are mistreated, or when things are unjust, it is not fair. At the Feast of France, there's some great sermons. I took huge notes, because I'm going to give the sermon here. I'm going to steal the planter, so I don't have to repent for stealing. But I'm going to go ahead and give the whole sermon here. How life seems unfair. What does that really mean in terms of God? Because we are always judging God by our ideas of fairness. I think everybody can look at Hannah, and we have unfairness and injustice. We all agree.

And yet, she maintained this incredible humbleness before God. Humility before God. God, without you, I can't do anything. I am your handmaid. I am your servant. I am your slave.

But I am in anguish. Staying patient in the face of injustice is so difficult. Because it's counter emotional. It's not how our emotions work.

But it even goes farther than that. Because in the New Testament, Jesus Christ said that we are to bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. You know what's interesting is we don't see Hannah pray that God punish her rival. She never asks, God, would you just help her to become like really ugly? I mean, like really ugly and smell really bad. And Al-Qaeda will never touch her again. Fix that, baby machine!

You see? She never did that. She goes before God and opens up and says, I am your handmaid. You are my God. Only you could do certain things. Only you could do certain things. So that's our first point. That first point is that you and I, would feel crushed by what seems to be unfair or unjust, must respond with a humble attitude of worship towards God, just like Hannah. Not bitterness, not just accusing, but opening up for God to come in. The second thing that she does, and it's very interesting, is we must stay focused on God, His ways and His promises, and not the unfairness and injustice. In Luke 18 verse 7, we read it and it says, In other words, we must be going to God all the time. It's okay to bring that petition. It's okay to go to God and say, this is unfair. But your openness has to be for God's response, not the response we want to force upon Him. We have to be open for His response. So that means we have to focus on God and His ways and His greatness and His goodness. You know, it's a simple lesson of life, and I want all the young people to listen to this. I don't care if you're eight years old, because this is really important. Much of the outcome of life is decided by what you concentrate on, what you put your mental energy into. If you put your mental energy into how unfair things are, how unjust things are, how mean people are, how bad things are, how your life is just, you know, horrible, guess what it will feel like? It will feel like just what you think.

If you concentrate your life on God who loves you, on God who made you, on God who has a purpose for you, and His goodness and His greatness and His ways, your energy will be different. How you think will be different, but this is important, this is important, how you feel will be different.

How you feel will be different. If you concentrate on nothing but negative things, you will feel bad. Any psychologist will tell you that. I mean, this is not like some secret knowledge, right? When we concentrate on God and the goodness of God, we will feel better. That's the way it is. But you are wired, in this world, we become wired to think on nothing but the negative. I was talking to someone the other day, he said, you know, right now, this is the worst time in the history of humanity. He said, oh yeah? He said, yeah. He said, ever really think about the dark ages? They're called the dark ages for a reason. Let's see. You live in a nice house, you have a car, you have air conditioning, you have a television, you have heat, you have furniture. Solomon didn't have what you have. You have a cell phone. In the middle ages, every day you hoped your children didn't die of some new disease that day. The average age, you were 40, you were old. You were old at age 40. One of the average two children never made a pass the first year. So people had 15 children, so that maybe five of them could survive. Of course, the women died, you know, you pack 12 children into 12 years, and you start having them at 15, you die at 27. So the middle ages, men buried twice, so they could produce more children, so some of them could survive.

And you lived in a hut, and about every other year, some group of barbarians came in and burned everything down. Oh, well, that's great!

But we become so negative. We see everything is bad. God can bless us, just pour out blessings, and we just say, oh, I don't know, let me play out. Okay, that's a nice blessing, but let me tell you about what's unfair.

Let me tell you about this bad thing that happened today.

We must understand that it's always going to be unfair in this world. Always. It's always going to be unjust. Always.

You don't live in a fair world, you don't live in a just world. You see, well, that's hard, and until you accept that, you'll never be happy.

We live in an unjust world and an unfair world. I wish I had a diaper every time my kids would say, that's just not fair. And I'd open my mouth and they'd say, I know, I know, who told me this was a fair world? I'd say, yeah! It's not.

And until Christ comes back, He never will be. So we have to be happy with that.

Or we have to decide to be unhappy. Let's go back to 1 Samuel 1. 1 Samuel 1.

I find it so interesting about Hannah and all this anguish. She never gave up on God. I mean, this had gone on for years. This had gone on for years. 1 Samuel 1, 17. We read this. Eli answered and said, Go at peace to the God of Israel. Grant your petition, which you have asked of Him. She said, Let your maidservant find favor at your sight. So the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. She was not eating. She was so depressed. You can get so depressed, you will eat. She was so depressed, you wouldn't eat.

It was lifted. She found comfort in God. She went there and got focused on God, in spite of the fact that she was being oppressed, downright abused by the high priest, who falsely accused her.

She went home and said, I can eat now. God is with me. And then God, of course, gave her what she wanted.

He is the source of comfort. He's not only the source of the answers to our prayers. He's the source of comfort, because sometimes the answers go. And as we, you know, next time maybe I'll go through a prayer where the answer was no. You know, what's nice about Hannah was the answer was yes. So it's very exciting that, wow, she had lots of children, and she was a happy person, and her son became one of the greatest men of God of all time.

But there's another thing she had to do here. And that is what we learned from this story of Hannah, is to receive God's full blessing in our lives. You and I have to stay dedicated to the commitments we make to Him. Let me say that again. To receive God's full blessing in our lives, we must stay dedicated to the commitments we make to Him.

She made a commitment to God. She said, you give me a son, I give him to you.

Now, I'm not saying we should all go bargain with God. That's not the point. Yeah, she bargained with God. You don't find that. There are very few cases of the Bible, and you see someone bargain with God and come out on the good end of it. But you do with Hannah because the person she was, this was so honest, so open, so humble before God that He gave her her request. But she had to carry that out.

You know, as he got closer and closer to age 3, there were times she probably said and thought, I've got to go give my baby away. I have to go give my baby away because I told God that I would. What's interesting, though, with this story is that you never see her in despair over that.

All it talks about is her anguish and her despair as she wanted the child. When it came to giving the child away back to God, you don't see any despair. Not in one whatsoever. She carried out her commitments. How many times in our lives have we committed to God? Oh, yes, God, what I'm going to do, I'm going to start praying more. I need to pray more. Oh, God, you know, I really need to study the Bible more. I'm going to start studying the Bible every day. You know, God, I need to be a better husband. So I'm going to really commit here to being a better husband. You know, God, I get this anger problem. And so I'm going to really commit to working with this anger problem with your help. How many commitments have you and I made to God and a week later forgot them? Sort of like New Year's resolution, Jim. And then we wonder why we're not fully blessed by God. When you and I make a commitment to God, He expects us to fulfill them. This is why Jesus said, don't make vows. Don't make vows. Don't go, I promise to do this, God, because the moment you promise God something and you don't do it, He says you have lied to me. You don't want God to say, you lied to me. That's a bad place to be. But the moment you and I promise Him, so even when we make our commitments, we've got to say, God, with your help, give it time. We'll do this together, okay? But He expects us. He expected Hannah to fulfill what she said she would do. He said, well, God, if God was fair, He would have said, no, no, you would have to bring the boy. No! Fairness was, she told God she would do it. Fairness, justice required her to do it. That's how important it is when we give our word to God.

By the way, that's why the marriage vow is so important. You promise God to make that marriage work.

Think about it. That's what we promise. God, it's a vow.

We promise it. We promise it. So, she makes this promise. She carries it out.

Verse, let's go to verse 25 of chapter 1.

Verse 1, verse 24. Now, when she had weaned Him, she took Him up with her with three bulls, one eath off of flour, a skin of wine, and brought Him to the house of the Lord in Shiloh, and the child was young. And they slaughtered a bull and brought the child to Eli. And she said, oh, my Lord, as my soul lives, I am the woman. Now, Eli, remember me. I'm the woman who showed up, who prayed that time three years ago. I am the woman who stood by you here, praying to the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition, which I asked of Him. Therefore, I also have lent Him to the Lord. As long as He lives, He shall be lent to the Lord. So they worshiped the Lord there. Now, it doesn't say she was an anguish. It doesn't say she was a despair. She's bringing Samuel to God. And now we have her second prayer.

Chapter 2, verses 1 through 10 is the second prayer of Hannah.

When she brought Samuel to the tabernacle to fulfill her commitment, you think, wow, she was probably so sad. Well, there would have been such sadness. What woman, what man, wouldn't feel sad about, oh, I'm only going to see my son once a year.

As he runs around like a little priest's close, I'm only going to see him once a year. I won't see him do certain things. I won't see him learn certain things. Now, there's a little bit of sadness, but that's not the overwhelming emotion she has. Look at her prayer, chapter 2. And Hannah prayed and said, this is a very long prayer and recorded in the Scripture, My heart rejoices in the Lord.

This is so exciting. God gets my child.

This miracle happened. I couldn't have children. God gave me a child.

Now this child gets to spend the rest of his life serving the God who gave him to me.

She's rejoicing. She's joyfully carrying out her commitment. She's willingly carrying out her commitment to God. She's not saying, you know what, this is unfair. She knew what unfair was. She'd been through unfair. This wasn't unfair. This was exciting. And she carried out her commitment. I smile at my enemies. Now she does get in a little big at the other wife.

I just grin, honey, honey, how you doing today?

I keep having more and more children. And he loves me. I smile, well, as she just says, I smile. The smile said it all. I smile at my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation. Because I rejoice in God's salvation. She realized, she'd found out when she opened her heart to God completely, opened her mind to God completely, when she went before Him, I am your main servant.

And God was working in her life.

She found out where her real happiness came from.

Verse 2, Know what is holy like the Lord, for there is not beside you, nor is there any rock like our God. The rest of this prayer is simply praising God. Now she's bringing her son, she's giving up her baby, and all she can do is say, this is wonderful, thank you, God. Now she does get a little dig here.

Let's see, where is it?

At the end of verse 5, And she who has had many children has become feeble.

All the other women just can't crank them out like I do.

Even before God is like, yeah, she's not as strong as I am. She's got to get his little dig. Let's give Hannah a little crack, a little slack here after all she's been through, okay? But she goes to God and she pours it out, this incredible praising of God. So much so that her prayer is recorded in the Bible. There's not a lot of long prayers recorded in the Bible. Hers is one of them. As she came and willfully and joyfully carried out her commitments, I think sometimes that we are not receiving God's full blessings because we are not willfully and thankfully carrying out our commitments. Because we make them to God all the time.

Psalm 61, we won't turn here, but that's a fascinating psalm where David talks about how every day he carried out his vows to God. And if you look in the context, he's talking about he goes before God every day and worships and prays. And I mean, this is a vow he made. I carry out this commitment every day to come before you and worship you.

And he writes a prayer about his commitment to prayer.

And how he carries it out every day. He understood that God's response to her prayer was a privilege. It wasn't something he owed her. And she made a commitment to him.

And when he gave her petition out of his grace, she was excited and joyful to carry out her commitment.

You think about the commitments we make to God and how quickly they become a burden. Yes, God, you know, the next year I'm going to stop eating all this junk food and I'm going to get better health.

Until you buy the next box of Oreos, right? And you eat half the box.

And we lose the joy of the commitment. Because we're not approaching God, first of all, in his humble worship attitude. See, because he came before him in his humble worship attitude, she stayed focused on him instead of focused on the injustice. And in the end, she's absolutely excited to fulfill her commitment.

And it does so. And so here we have this story. The story of Hannah has one of many biblical examples of prayer. But look how much it is in this. You can read Samuel 1-2 and get all kinds of things I haven't even brought out.

But it's there for a reason. It's to show us her human side, what she went through, and it's also to show us what we all learned from this person. Because of this, the three things that we've talked about. One, a humble attitude of worship towards God that helps us not be offended by others or crushed by injustice.

Two, we must stay focused on God, his ways and his promises, not on the seemingly lack of fairness and justice. And three, to receive God's full blessing in our lives, we must stay dedicated to the commitments we make to it. So I encourage all of you, when you're struggling with what seems like injustice, what it seems like unfairness in your life, just go read the story of him.

Thank you, Mr. Patty.