1 Samuel and the next 8 Bible books offer a leadership training manual: what things mark people God uses – and those He can’t. And 1 Samuel starts with two things we might expect: grace, and the leader’s upbringing.
Fascinatingly, though, the starting point of the great things God will do in Israel is how he responds to the prayer of one desperate woman. Hannah’s name actually means grace – God’s undeserved love reaching into our darkness. To understand how dark we need to look back at the horrific end of Judges, where terrible things happen exactly around Bethlehem (the setting for Ruth, David’s great grandmother) and the Ephraim hills (Hannah’s home). In these two places two women went through a hard time; and God stepped into the darkest place.
But also God’s starting point is a messy family situation. (Encouraging: out of such a situation God brings great goodness.) Hannah’s childless. Men or couples who conceived quickly may not grasp how, for many of us who are single or indeed married, childlessness can be deeply painful, a profound denial of who we are. Hannah won’t eat (1 Sam 1:7), is in bitterness of soul (v10), miserable (v11), deeply troubled (v15), in great anguish (v16). And her husband Elkanah is way out of his depth. V8: “Hannah, why are you downcast? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?” My colleague Andrew Waugh used to say: `If your wife comes to you really hurting with a problem, don’t solve it! Just listen!` Elkanah thinks he’s solved it. Hannah’s childless? But he has a second wife, and she’s provided the kids; sorted! And he’s kind, and he doesn’t want Hannah to feel unloved, so each holiday he arranges for her a double portion of meat. Great. Husbands may feel like watching all this from behind the sofa; the sheer unawareness feels all too recognizable.
And someone else is hurting too, the second wife, the one who’s provided the kids. Because every year Hannah’s double portion of meat reminds her that she’s the one who’s loved less. And because she’s miserable she makes Hannah’s life miserable (v6). So inside, Hannah’s pain is tearing her apart, and she’s wondering if it’s her fault, and where is God, and outside, there’s insult and Peninnah’s kids as reminders of her “failure”. Year after year she tries to handle it. Finally, in desperation, she prays.
What do we learn from her prayer? Be real with God (vv10-12). Like Job saying why wasn’t I aborted, she takes it to God. This world isn’t heaven, it’s a very damaged world, and it’s ok to tell God that we’re hurt and angry about it. Hannah wept much. And it was all made worse in v14 because her own spiritual leader didn’t grasp what was going on. (Please pray for yours!) Only God will really `get it`; we can say to God at least what we’d say to an earthly father or mother, or an ideal older brother or sister. Thank God that He’s a God who says to us as to Hannah, Come and share it, tell me how you are. And indeed His love has a plan in the course of time. But right now, be real.
So what happens? Vv16-18 are clearly a climax. Hannah gets no prophetic promise that everything will be ok; what she does get from fellowship with Eli (despite his initial cluelessness) is a new confirmation of God’s goodness. She’s enabled to refocus; to grasp again that God is actually good. And her worship in 2:2 will focus on this, on what God showed her of Himself: `There is no Rock like our God…`
This is very practical. Answered prayer is not automatic, but if we’re Christians, if we’re not doing something to block God’s power, then the norm is that our good God will answer our prayers. `Whatever you ask for in prayer`, says Jesus, `believe that you have received it, and it will be yours` (Mark 1124); `If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you`(John 15:7). Interestingly He states no exceptions; there’s nothing about prayers sometimes not being answered. Then again, if we think big picture, soon after both these verses Jesus was in Gethsemane praying a desperate prayer that certainly wasn’t answered. So sometimes God does say no when He has a really good, loving reason. But it seems that the main point He wants to get across to us in those earlier verses is that He is our Abba, our Father, and so the norm is that He answers prayer; He loves us, and if we ask for bread we won’t get a stone unless something really good is coming out of it. No exceptions are stated because so many of us need to get first into our thick heads that God normally answers prayer; we need to cultivate the mental reflex that expects Him to answer, rather than expecting Him to have a good reason not to. We’re challenged to reach out for grace for the mental effort for this faith, and to use it to fuel our prayers.
So as that light starts to dawn, Hannah starts to dream big dreams of what God might be doing. In the new testament, suffering and glory tend to go together like two sides of a coin; if such a loving Father lets us suffer, it can only be because great glory is on its way. What she prays in 2:10 is remarkable; it’s the first biblical use of `anointed`, Messiah, the dream of a coming King who will put everything right. Hannah dreams big dreams of what God may be doing, and wants her son to be part of that. And so what she does in 1:28 is staggering. I can’t imagine giving up my son when he was three. But Hannah’s now got a real grasp of God, and so can hold His gifts with a loose hand. And such a vision in his mother will equip her little son Samuel for what he has to do.
In suffering we must dream big dreams of what God may be doing. Is that fantasizing? No. It’s building on what we know about our loving Father, that – like an earthly father taking his son to the dentist – He will not allow us to suffer unless greater goodness, even huge glory, will follow. As Hebrews says, hope is our anchor; we will survive and grow as we lock on to God’s loving purposes. It’s not always easy to get to that point; we have to choose to reach out for the grace for it. But if we do, it will be like 1:18. Hannah leaves God’s presence a different woman. She’s not feeling pregnant, not yet. But she goes back to her rival’s kids, and now she eats. And `her eyes had a new light, and her face a secret smile` (John White, Daring to Draw Near), because she trusted God. And His provision of the leader Israel so badly needed was now well underway…
