September 19, 2012
The Faithfulness of Hannah
1st Samuel 1:1-2:10
I Hannah's Sorrow 1:1-8
II Hannah's Prayer 1:9-18
III Hannah's Surrender 1:19-28
III Hannah's Song 1:19-2:10
"In May 1996, ValuJet Flight 592, crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing 110 passengers. To be able to determine the cause of the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board, needed the plane's black box. The authorities knew that it would't be easy to find. The crash had scattered plane debris across a large area of swamp. Dozens of searchers descended on the scene, to sift through the muck and the water, which was as much as eight feet deep, in some places, in an attempt to find it.
Navy experts tried to use a special technology that could detect submerged metal, but, unfortunately, they didn't have any success.
Holding a rope that kept them spaced 3 feet apart, the searchers systematically poked through every square foot of the crash area. After 14 days, they still had not found anything.
For the workers, the physical conditions were almost unbearable. The Florida sun was beating down on them as the temperatures hovered in the high 90s. Diesel fuel and caustic hydraulic fluid, from the wrecked plane floated in the water, forcing the searchers to wear rubber and latex protective boots and overalls and gloves, making the heat and humidity beyond miserable. Fourteen days of those conditions even landed some of the searchers, who were suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion, in the hospital.
Sergeant Felix Jimenez, a Metro-Dade County policeman, was one of the searchers. For 14 days, he had prayed for the bereaved families and for the safety of his fellow workers------ but on the 15th day, as he took a break, he suddenly realized that he had forgotten to pray for one thing. He hadn't asked for God, to help them find the little black box.
So, he paused right then, and asked God for direction, and then he resumed his search.
The minute he stuck his pole into the water, he hit something metallic and when he pulled it up out of the muck, it was the black box!
Jimenez wrote about, his experience, in the Guidepost magazine and he said, "At the end of the day….I thought of the many days we had spent searching for the recorder, how we must have tromped over it many times, and I wondered why its retrieval had taken so long. And amid the low rustle of saw grass and the call of a great white heron, I seemed to hear God's response: 'Why did it take you so long to ask?'"
That's the way we are! A lot of times we look for the answers to our questions, in every direction but the one place, where we can really find them. God tells us in James 1:5, "that if anyone lacks wisdom, then we should just ask Him for it, and He will give it to us, and He won't rebuke us for asking." So, why do we wait till the last minute and the last resort, to go to Him for answers and comfort and direction and strength and our heart's desires? Why do we go to the phone before we go to the throne? Why do we go to self-help books? Why do we go to counselors, even godly ones? Why do we go to medication and food and exercise? Why do we lose ourselves in the books and entertainment and activities de jour, that the world offers? All of these things are good and effective and even healthy, in the right context------but they are poor substitutes for the perfect answers that the Lord wants to give us. Fundamentally, the reason we don't go to God first, is because we think too highly of ourselves. We have to much pride, to humble ourselves and lay our hearts and souls bare before the Lord; it makes us too vulnerable, and we can't stand that, because it makes us feel uncomfortable, and it makes us feel inadequate.
But Hannah had no problem with it. She trusted God so completely that she wasn't afraid to ask Him to give her her heart's desire and then she trusted Him enough to give her heart's desire back to Him. She is an amazing role model for us.
It should be a great encouragement to us today, that Hannah's years of suffering, which were brought about by her barrenness and by her living in a stressful home situation and by her raising her son, only to have to give Him back----- made her into a woman, who truly knew God. We can see this so clearly in both of her prayers. In her, we can see a person who had walked and talked with the Lord for many years. Hannah is the perfect illustration of a prayer warrior, because she trusted her sovereign God to intervene in her life, and to orchestrate it, to fit into the plan that He had already ordained for her and for her family and for His people, from the beginning of time.
I Hannah's Sorrow 1:1-8
The hope, of the coming of the Messiah, was in the heart of every truly righteous man and woman in the old Testament. Their fervent longing for Him was the focus of their existence. The truth of his coming was threaded throughout the scripture like a brilliant scarlet cord----- sometimes it came boldly to the surface, in explicit promises and prophecies------ and sometimes it was concealed, just underneath the surface, throbbing with the constant heartbeat of the waiting Savior, until He revealed Himself in all His glory, in the person of the Lord Jesus.
Although the OT people's understanding of the redeeming Messiah was dim and shadowy, there was always a remnant, who kept all their hopes for salvation, focused on their promised Redeemer. Job, whose story, is one of the most ancient expressions of faith, that's recorded in scripture, testifies to his longing for the Messiah, at the lowest point, of his worst troubles in Job 19:25-27, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" Amazing! maybe as much as 2000 years before Jesus' resurrection, Job's faith included the expectation of his own bodily resurrection!!!!
Hannah had that same kind of faith!!!! It was the essence of her belief in Almighty God, and the foundation of that belief, which gave her the courage to be able to pray the way she did. But, there was one other element that was a driving force for her and the other women, in the Old and the New Testaments, which carries through into Jewish culture, even today----- and it is, that nobody knew, who would be granted, by God, the privilege, of being the mother of the Messiah.
As much as Hannah wanted a child for herself to love and to raise, and as much as she wanted a child for her husband Elkanah to have help on the farm and to carry on his name------the deeper desire for her, I believe, was to honor her God and her nation, by bearing the hope and salvation of all mankind!
Hannah was an obscure woman, living in a remote part of Israel. Their home was in the territory of Ephraim. Her husband was a descendant, in the priestly line of Levi. That they were a devout family, is evidenced for us, in seeing their consistency, year after year, of traveling 20 miles to Shiloh, probably on foot, to worship in the tabernacle there, for the nation's High Holy days. That they were a faithful family, is evidenced in the love that we can see between Hannah and Elkanah; and in the patience that Hannah exercised with Penninah; and in the prayers that Hannah prayed and the vow that she made to God, and in the way Elkanah honored that vow; and in the way Hannah kept her vow; and in the way Hannah and Elkanah taught their son how to worship God and to serve Him with his whole heart, his whole life long.
We know that their family was a polygamous one. And polygamy is definitely not the way that God chooses for families to live. He ordained one woman for one man, back in the Garden, when He created Adam and Eve------but in the culture that biblical people lived in, it had become a normal way of life. For a lot of men, it was a pride issue, that represented his male prowess------ but the main reason was, so that the man would have an heir-----the inability of a wife to produce an heir was a serious issue---- because an heir maintained the family line and carried on the family name and also provided for the preservation of the father's estate within the clan and the tribe. Plus, it was kind of like social security, the heir would provide for his mother after his father's death. It was also a way of taking care of widows and old maids, to insure that they were not a drain on the society-----it took the place of welfare. Political alliances, lust and economic purposes were also reasons that middle eastern men took extra wives. It's interesting, that these are the exact same reasons, that polygamy is practiced in that part of the world, still today.
(We're taught by the scripture, that motherhood is the highest calling that God can bestow on a woman-----but I don't want you to get the idea that it's the only proper role for a woman. 1 Cor. 7:8-9 says that it is God's will for some women to remain single and Psalm 127:3 says that some married women will remain childless------- and the understanding of this, is so that they can devote themselves to the Lord, in service to the kingdom, without any divided loyalties.)
It is though, the one vocation that God designed uniquely, for women; only a woman can be a mother------there is no man that could ever fill that role.
Of course, in the world that we leave in-----motherhood gets a bad wrap sometimes-----it is often scorned and belittled and relegated to the back seat of importance-----how often to you meet women, who will tell you what they do professionally 1st, and then, they will tell you that they are wives and mother's second?
But its been God's plan from the beginning, that women should train and nurture godly children, so they will leave a powerful imprint on society. John MacArthur says "that Hannah is a reminder to us, that mothers are the makers of men and the architects of the next generation." Hannah's earnest prayer for a child shows us how much she trusted God, and how much that trust had developed over time. God used her suffering to grow her into the mother, who could shape the man, that He needed, to lead Israel. We will see, as we continue to study, that Samuel's character bore the clear stamp of his mother's influence, even though he left home at such an early age.)
Hannah's name means grace and she seems to have had a gracious character to match it. But in spite of that, her home life was often troubled and sorrowful. The fact that her husband was a bigamist, had to have caused severe tension in the family, on a daily basis, made especially harder by Peninnah's having many children, and Hannah having none. And scripture says that Peninnah deliberately provoked Hannah, by tormenting her by constantly calling attention to her own remarkable fertility, and Hannah's God-ordained barrenness.
And Elkanah didn't help matters any. He tried to show Hannah how much he loved her by giving her special portions of food, at the feast celebrations that they went to at Shiloh------but that only magnified to Penninah, that even though she was the mother of his children------she was second-best, in his affection----and so she retaliated, by taking her heartache and disappointment out on Hannah.
This made life almost unbearable for Hannah. Not so much because of the taunting, which was a miserable thing, but because of the constant anguish over her infertility, month after month and year after year-----and having it constantly pointed out to her.
(What is it, that's in our lives, right now, that's bringing us this same kind of anguish? It can be anything, not just wanting to have or adopt a baby------but something that we desire, from the very depths of our souls. It may be that we have earnestly prayed for something to either begin or to end, for a long time----and God has either said no, or He's said, not yet. (it could be….. marriage for the 1st time; marriage after widowhood or divorce; having to deal with a first wife from a husband's previous marriage; having to walk a tight rope in a blended family of children and step-children; reconciliation after a broken relationship; dealing with days and days of the constant drain of being mother to small children; navigating the minefield of worry over a teenager who's angry or on drugs or promiscuous; worry and fear over money or the loss of a job; having to work at a job that makes us miserable; struggling with some kind of an addiction or depression; worrying about a debilitating or life-threatening illness for you or a loved one)-------there are countless things that could have us agonizing in our spirits----- Whatever it is----we need to take it to the Lord and lay it at His feet in prayer, and leave it there----- we can't make God move one bit faster than He wants to and He knows how and when He wants to answer our prayers.)
But Hannah's marriage, even though it was marred by tension and rivalry, was solid. Elkanah obviously loved her with a sincere affection and her love for him seems to have been reciprocated, because he tried so hard to comfort her, by tenderly reminding her of all the good things that they had, especially his love for her. But bless his heart---he was as sweet as he could be------ but he was clueless------she needed empathy and sincere understanding------ and in a typical male, self-centered approach----he tried to be her solution, instead of her sounding board and her shoulder to cry on.
(Don't you think that most men are that way though, and they can't help it…..God made them that way----they mean well, but they can barely see the forest for the trees------but they are sincere, and they just want to fix, whatever's hurting us.) We need to teach them that sometimes, all we need is for them to just listen to us or just hold us or just make the world stop for a minute and be our friend.
Elkanah asked her, "Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? and Why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than 10 sons? He didn't understand that the love that he had for Hannah didn't make up for the emptiness of her womb. (On a much, much lesser scale----I would love to get a puppy-----our one and only family dog passed away about 7 years ago----she was deaf, had cataracts and had to be given insulin shots twice a day for diabetes-----Dale doesn't want to be responsible for another dog in it's old age----so his pat answer to me, is always----"you don't need a dog, you can take care of me, I'm better than a puppy…" classic answer and one has nothing to do with the other----but it does make me laugh and it does lighten the moment.
And Elkanah's questions must have helped Hannah some, too-----at least for the moment, because immediately, she got up and ate, and then went into the tabernacle to pray.
Hannah's love for her husband is the first key to understanding her profound influence as a mother----and why she is used so often, as the sermon topic on Mothers Day, in churches, all over the country. Contrary to popular opinion, the most important characteristic of a godly mother, is not her relationship with her children. The most important characteristic of a godly mother is her love for her husband. The love between a husband and a wife is the real key to a thriving family. (I've heard Dale say many times that the greatest gift that a man can give his children, is to let them see how much he loves their mother) well it the same thing for a mother---the greatest gift that she can give her children, is to let them see how much she loves their daddy. A healthy home environment is not built around the children; its built around the marriage ---- and a healthy marriage is not built around the husband and wife; its built around the Lord------The hierarchy in a marriage should always be, if you look at it in a pyramid fashion, the Lord first, the husband and wife second, the children third and then extended family and friends and jobs and interests and everything else falling into place under these.
All parents and grandparents need to understand, that what you communicate to your children, and your grandchildren, through your marital relationship, will stay with them for the rest of their lives. By watching how a husband and a wife treat each other, our children and grandchildren, will learn the most fundamental lessons of life-----love, self-sacrifice, integrity, virtue, sin, sympathy, patience, loyalty, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness, just to name a few. Whatever we teach them about those things, right or wrong, is planted deep inside their hearts.
That emphasis of the centrality of the Lord in marriage and the love between the husband and wife, is very evident between Elkanah and Hannah. With all their domestic issues, they still seem to have had a healthy marriage and an abiding love for each other. Their inability to have children together was like an open wound. But it made them close and grew a tenderness between them. Even in a home environment with a second wife and multiple children-----a chaos that was created by the bigamy and made even worse by Peninnah's ill temperment-----Hannah and Elkanah clearly were deeply connected to each other.
The glimpse that God gives us of their stress-filled household, provides us with a helpful backdrop, to be able to see that God's purposes, can't be thwarted by human shortcomings. He worked within the strain and stress of their relationship to bring Samuel into the world. When our relationships seem too snarled to be salvaged or even, unraveled, we need to remember that God not only displays His creativity, by being able to make things from scratch, but He also shows us His power and wisdom, by bringing order and beauty, out of seemingly, impossible messes.
The best thing about Hannah and Elkanah's marriage, was that they worshiped God together and they did it regularly. All Israelite men were required to attend at least 3 of their annual feasts----but they could journey to Shiloh to worship, any time they wanted to. We don't know how often Hannah and Elkanah visited the tabernacle-----it could have been many more than the 3 required times, because it would only have been about a 2 day journey to get there for them----- and from what it seems like in the scripture, further on in chapter 2------ most likely, they did go more often, and took their family with them when they went. The Lord seems to have occupied the central place in their lives together, because worship was important to them, it was obviously, a way of life for them. That's what kept their love for one another strong, in the face of so much adversity.
And the importance of worship in their lives, explains a second reason why Hannah is such an influential mother and example for us----because as much as she loved Elkanah, its obvious by her prayers and her actions and her attitude, that she loved God more.
II Hannah's Prayer 1:9-18
From Peninnah's perspective, her abuse was designed to goad Hannah into complaining to and about God. But it had just the opposite effect on Hannah; it wound up driving her to her knees. Hannah could have shaken her fist in God's faith; she could have challenged His motives for keeping her barren; or rejected Him and lived her life in bitterness toward Him, in her heart and in her behavior, spilling it out, onto everybody around her. But she didn't-----she let her heartache draw her even closer to the Lord.
The lesson for us is, that we need to always let our sorrow and our hurt and our worry and our disappointment and our fear, drive us to our knees.
Hannah had good reason to feel discouraged, but instead of giving up hope and giving into defeat, she laid her problems honestly before the Lord. Each of us have faced; are facing; or will face, times of barrenness---- when it seems like nothing is "coming to birth" in our work or in our service or in our relationships or in our desires. It can be difficult to pray when we feel so ineffective. But prayer will open the way for God to work and if we will just submit ourselves to Him, even when we don't know what to say, the Holy Spirit will say it for us. Hannah persistence in prayer, is a beautiful characteristic and it was Hannah's distinctive virtue----it revealed her constant and steadfast faith.
Hannah was deeply distressed and cried out to the Lord, while Eli, the old priest, sat nearby on a chair at the doorpost of the tabernacle. She recognized that the Lord alone, is the giver of life so she came to Him with a proper respect, believing that He would help her somehow, in her distress.
I don't know if she believed that He would give her exactly what she asked for, but I do believe, that she believed, if it was in His will, He would----- because she called Him the Lord Almighty.
She came to Him with a proper attitude. In the Hebrew translation, Hannah so humbled herself, that she referred to herself 3 times, as a female household slave. She understood that the proper position before a Holy God, was one of absolute submission.
And Hannah came to the Lord with a proper request----way too many times, our prayers are one-sided. We tend to come to the Lord just to ask Him for something. We give lip-service to praising Him, but our real motive is to get a need or a want fulfilled. E.W Price, Jr. reminds us that prayer is a conversation between God and one of his children----they both talk and they both listen----and their hearts are in communion with each other. Hannah made her request, but she also promised something to God----she promised that would give her heart's desire back to Him.
The method of prayer in Hannah's time was to be loud and showy-----its no wonder that Eli misunderstood what she was doing. He could see her lips moving, but he couldn't hear what she was saying. He thought she was drunk. So, Hannah, with her characteristic grace and humility, defended herself------- because she knew that she was talking to the Lord, heart to heart! and it didn't really matter what Eli thought.
Eli realized his blunder and recognized the honesty of her words, so he validated Hannah's prayer with a blessing, and with a benediction, that the God of Israel would grant her request. It was then that Hannah's whole demeanor changed. Her spirit was lifted and her depression disappeared. her sorrow seemed to melt away. She had taken her focus off of her circumstances and put it on the Lord----her circumstances didn't change right away, but her attitude about her circumstances changed immediately.She went back to her family and sat down with them and ate something.
In the end, Hannah, trusted completely in God's will for her life. Whatever it was-----she was assured that her God was in control. She had cast her whole burden on the Lord and she had left her frustration and disappointment and heartache, there at the altar. She was content to leave it in the Lord's hands. This demonstrates for us, how genuine and patient her faith truly was----Psalm 55:22 says, "Cast your burden on the Lord and He shall sustain you." Too many times, we pray, O Lord, here's my problem…" and then leave His presence, still bowed down with doubt and frustration and fear-----still shouldering the same burden we had started our prayer with, not really trusting the Lord to take care of us. The antidote for discouragement, is to tell God how you really feel, and then to leave it with Him. Hannah laid her troubles in the lap of the Lord, with total confidence that He would answer her, in one accord, with what was best for her.
The next morning, the Elkanah family worshiped God one more time, and then they went home. Scripture tells us that the Lord, remembered Hannah and He opened her womb, and in due time, Samuel was born. Hannah had been given the desire of her heart.
III Hannah's Surrender 1:19-28
Hannah was devoted to her home and to her family. We can see the evidence of that in the love she and Elkanah shared and his willingness to trust her, when she told him, that she had vowed to dedicate their only child, to a life of service to God, in the tabernacle, as a Nazarite; and we can see evidence of it, in her her patience with Peninnah, because their is no evidence in scripture, that Hannah ever said a cross word to her or retaliated, for Peninnah's mistreatment, in any way. We can see it, in her deep longing for a child, even if she wouldn't get to raise the child to adulthood-----just knowing that he was in the world, serving the Lord, was a blessing to her.
And we can see it in the way that she was committed to Samuel, in his infancy, especially------ and then, consistently, in his growing-up years.
Hannah devoted herself solely to Samuel's care, for as long as she was able to have him at home. She knew that her time with Samuel would be short. Mothers in that culture nursed their children for about 3 years. Her plan was to stay home with him until he was weaned. She wanted to be able to care for him without interference, during his most formative years, while he was learning to walk and talk. She made it clear to Elkanah that she hadn't forgotten her vow, and that she would honor it, when the time was right. In the meantime, she wanted to be the most important person in Samuel's life.
She would have been, the very model, of a stay-at-home mama. She would have nurtured him, and cared for him, and helped him to learn the most basic truths of life and wisdom. She would have taught him his first lessons about God----and would have sung songs of praise with him-----(it reminds me of singing Jesus Loves Me, and This Little Light of Mine, and If You're Happy and You Know It and Amazing Grace, and The Old Rugged Cross, to my children, when they were little).
She would have made her home an environment, where he could learn and grow in safety, without any fear of asking questions or expressing his opinions or his fears. She would have carefully directed his course of learning and helped shape his interests.
Hannah seemed to understand how vital those early years are, when 90% of a child's personality is formed. Proverbs 22:6 says "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
And based on the life, dedicated to the Lord, that we know that Samuel lived, Hannah had prepared him well for the service, that she had consecrated him for, even before he was born. History tells us that she did her job well. Samuel, obviously a precocious child, grew in wisdom and understanding, and served the Lord, with his whole heart, his whole life. The only blot on his record came in his old age, when he made his sons judges and they perverted the justice. Samuel's own failure as a father, was the one aspect of his life that was obviously owed, more to the influence of Eli, the old priest----- which we will talk about next week----- than to the example of Hannah.
Her devotion to her son in those early years, makes her ultimate willingness, to hand Samuel over to a life of service in the tabernacle, seem even more remarkable. It must have been intensely painful, for her to send him off at such an early age, to what basically, was a Christian boarding school, with Eli as his tutor. But Hannah doesn't seem to have hesitated, to do what she had promised God. She gave up what she wanted most-----her son-----and presented him to Eli, to serve in the house of the Lord. In dedicating her only child to God, Hannah was dedicating her entire life and future to Him, as well.
Because God, had given life to Samuel, Hannah wasn't really giving him up-----she was giving him back to God------because he didn't really belong to her anyway. None of our children do. They belong to God, He just gives them to us for safekeeping and for loving them and training them in the ways of the Lord. so that they'll choose Him for themselves, when they are old enough to. And this doesn't just apply to our children----it applies to everything we have---it's all God's, He has just given us the opportunity to be stewards of His good things----what we really need to give Him, is ourselves.
Hannah must have continued to exercise a strong maternal influence on Samuel as he grew into a young man, because 1st Samuel 2:19 tells us, that she would make him a robe and take it to him year after year, when she and the rest of the family traveled to the tabernacle, to make their sacrifices.
Scripture says that God blessed Hannah with 5 more children----3 sons and 2 daughters. Her home and her family life must have grown rich and full. She was blessed, by God, to be allowed to achieve every ambition that she had ever longed to fulfill. Her love for heaven, husband and home, are still the true priorities, for every godly wife and mother. Her extraordinary life stands as a wonderful example to women today, who want their homes to be places where God is honored, even in the middle of a dark and sinful culture. Hannah has shown us with her life, what the Lord can do through one woman, who is totally and unreservedly devoted to Him.
IV Hannah's Song 2:1-10
Hannah's song is a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord for His blessing, in the gracious gift of her son, and it exalts Him, for His good works. Its a pure, unbroken stream of praise. The contrast between this prayer and the first one we heard her pray, is profound! The first prayer was a vow, and it was the result of heavy disappointment and deep-seated grief--------- and the second prayer, is a song of wonder and peace----which was the result of pure joy. The joy came, not just from being given her heart's desire, but from the privilege of seeing God, at His work, in all His glory, and being square in the center, of His will. (because it is better to be in the Lord's will, even if we're in danger, even if we're scared, even if we're heartbroken, than it is to be out of His will and safe and secure, from all alarm.
Hannah's song can be divided into 4 sources of joy:
1.) Hannah rejoiced in her own experience. bur she gave God all the glory for it------Samuel was a gift from God(as are all children). He wasn't the product of her strength or her own achievement. There was nothing she could have done to create Samuel's life inside of her----only God could do that; only Almighty God can give life and can take it away. That's why she could boast over her enemies, and could advise other people to do the same---- because she knew, with all certainty, that God was in control of all things and all situations. Her boasting, was in God's power, of deliverance. She didn't have to struggle and fight and fret any more----she knew that God would bring about His plan, when and where His time was right.
2.) Hannah rejoiced in her God. She felt an unfathomable sense of God's holiness, as she praised the Lord for His goodness. She was in awe of the fact, that there was no one holy, like Him. Ancient Canaan was was full of idol worship. And specifically, women were partial to praying to and worshiping these tiny little clay figures, named for the goddess Astarte, in the hope, that they would increase the fertility of their owners. But Hannah didn't pray to a doll, she prayed to the Lord. He was real and alive and He was her rock, and He had done a mighty work in her, and He was doing a mighty work for Israel.
Standing before a Holy God, requires humility. In her first prayer, in her misery, Hannah had had to humble herself before the Lord----- and when she did, she was rewarded with a little glimpse of heaven------In her second prayer, Hannah turned her attention, to look beyond, her own immediate experience, and she publicly warned her fellow Israelites and us, not to be proud and arrogant. Her prayer cautions us, that we need to understand that God knows our thoughts and He judges our deeds.
In our fast-paced world, friends come and go and circumstances change. Its difficult to find anything that has a solid foundation, that won't change or disappear. Devoting our lives to achievements, causes, and possessions will prove to be futile in the end, because those things are all finite and mercurial, they will disappear. The possessions and achievements that we work so hard to accomplish, will all pass away. But God will always be present---our hope should always be in Him, because He will never fail us. And we should live our lives, with this knowledge, as the driving force behind all of our decisions.
3.) Hannah rejoiced in God's way of justice. Her prayer says, that God weighs the deeds of man, and that He humbles and exalts the deeds and the people, based on what He thinks is necessary. The proud and the haughty may stand for awhile, but eventually they will be brought low, as we've seen time and time again, in history, and in our own lives. Hannah describes 5 areas of life where God has always and will always prove Himself to be the one in control-----in military might, in famine, in economic status, in fertility, and in life and death .
The very foundations of the earth belong to our sovereign Lord, and He created the world on them. Hannah saw God's justice as the prevailing force, because she knew that God had created and established the world. God is on the throne of life, and His heart is with the poor and lowly, who are willing to trust Him, in spite of their circumstances.
4.) Hannah rejoiced in her future hope. She expressed that hope, both in the every day world she lived in, and in the eternal world, that she believed would someday come. Travel, in the ancient world. was accomplished mostly on foot, over difficult and rocky terrain and sometimes across rivers and mountains. Travel in this world, physically, spiritually and emotionally, can be just as dangerous, and the terrain just as treacherous. Hannah proclaimed that the Lord will guard the feet of those who are faithful to Him----that includes us, as we walk through the details of our lives, one step at a time.
No one will succeed in their own strength, and anyone who tries to oppose God, will eventually be the loser.
Because of her deep and abiding relationship with the Lord, Hannah was able to catch, a prophetic glimpse of the coming Messiah. By the power of the Holy Spirit, she was able to look beyond her circumstances and see 1000 years into the future, and embrace the glory of her salvation.
There is a enough prophetic and doctrinal significance in Hannah's song, that we could spend weeks, analyzing it. But even just discussing it briefly, we can see that Hannah was thoroughly familiar with the deep things of God----with His holiness, His goodness, His sovereignty, His power and His wisdom. She worshiped Him as Savior, as Creator, and as sovereign judge. But the most precious thing about the prayer, is that Hannah spoke about God, with the assurance of someone who knew Him intimately. Her words of praise were filled with love and wonder. That love for Him and a love for all things heavenly, is what makes her the person that we should all pattern our lives after.
My prayer for us is this: that Hannah's reverence will be reflected in our homes, that our prayers will be as powerful as hers, that our devotion will be evident to everyone we come in contact with, that our children and grandchildren will hear God's words from our lips, that our husbands will catch a glimpse of God's holiness through our humility, that our friends will be infected with our fervor, for prayer and service, that we will be able to clear life's clouds away, that we will be able to appreciate life's happiness and it's beauty, that we will be able to have compassion on life's miseries, and that we will be able to turn our duty to delight, and our work to worship, and our service to singing and our pleasures to worship.
Like Hannah, we should be confident of God's ultimate control over the events in our lives. We should be so grateful, for the ways, that God has blessed us. By praising God for all good gifts, we are acknowledging His ultimate control over all the affairs of life in general, and ours, in particular.
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