- When Sovereignty Meets Prayer: The Faith of Hannah
We worship a sovereign God.
That’s a heady way to start a post, but it’s a truth many of us need to hear more often. God is in absolute control of his entire Creation, from the largest galaxies to the tiniest microorganisms.
At the same time, God tells us to pray. We should exercise the incredible privilege of coming before God in faith with our requests. That’s a teaching of the Bible that’s as real as the teaching of God’s sovereignty.
Sometimes, though, we wonder how to reconcile these two truths. If God is in complete control, and if he knows what I’m going to ask him before I even ask, then why do I need to pray?
As I wrote in another post, “Sometimes God wills the results of our prayer by first willing that we pray. God wills something to happen, but it happens only through our prayer. Prayer doesn’t change God’s mind, it’s how his will is done. God plans our prayers just as much as he plans the results of our prayers.” God accomplishes what he wills, and sometimes the means of achieving his will are through our prayers.
The book of 1 Samuel begins with a story about both the sovereignty of God and the importance of coming before him in prayer. Not just flippantly coming to God with a list of wishes, but coming before him in honesty, brokenness, and, most of all, unwavering trust.
After the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, they were led by a series of Judges, the primary topic of the book of that very name. The people fell into an endless cycle of peace and prosperity, complacency, sin, pain, a cry for help, a judge to bring deliverance, and peace again. After roughly 300 years of this cycle, the nation had spiraled down into a complete loss of morality.
Just when things looked their worst, God intervened in all his sovereignty in response to the prayers of one woman. Her name was Hannah.
A man named Elkanah who had two wives — Hannah and Peninnah — came to the tabernacle to worship. I will pause and say that nowhere in the Bible does God condone polygamy. It was a part of most pagan cultures around Israel but was never part of God’s plan.
Elkanah traveled each year with his entire family to worship at the tabernacle in the town of Shiloh, and in 1 Samuel 1:4-6, we learn more about his wife, Hannah:
On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. (1 Samuel 1:4-6)
“The Lord had closed.” Hannah had no children, but this was not some unhappy accident. It was the work of God. He didn’t just allow it to happen, he caused it. In those days, people assumed that if a woman couldn’t bear a child she must have sinned in some way. According to Deuteronomy 7:13-14, children were a sign of God’s blessing, so people just assumed, and you know what assuming does, that the opposite must also be the case: someone who could not have a child must be cursed. That isn’t true at all, but it was the world in which Hannah lived.
Hannah’s situation didn’t cause her trust in God to waver. It also didn’t diminish Elkanah’s love for her. He gave portions of the meat to Peninnah and all her kids, but a double portion to Hannah, “because he loved her.”
Sadly, Peninnah, the one who was blessed by God with children, mocked Hannah about her situation. She would rub it in Hannah’s face constantly. This is one of those times when we ask, “God, why do good things happen to bad people?” Have you ever asked that? If Hannah ever did, we don’t know about it, because God didn’t record it. What he does tell us is that Hannah never became bitter about her situation. The Bible never tells us that she got even with Peninnah or caused any problems in the family. What Hannah did was turn to God in prayer. Year after year, she continued to pray. Peninnah has child after child, but Hannah never stops praying. Another visit to Shiloh found Hannah praying once again.
After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.” (1 Samuel 1:9-11)
Hannah came to God in tears and brokenness, transparent before God. I believe that’s the way we should approach our prayers. When we’re discouraged, confused, grieving, or even angry, we ought to share all of that with our Father. He knows anyway, but he’s also never offended when we speak honestly to him. He wants us to come to him fully open and transparent.
That’s what Hannah does. You get the feeling that no matter how God chose to answer her prayer, Hannah’s faith wouldn’t falter. Long before Paul wrote Romans 8:28, she knew its truth.
Hannah also fully understood God’s sovereignty. She knew that he was God Almighty, and he alone was the giver of life. If God chose for her to have a child, nothing could stop her from having one. On the other hand, if God did not intend for her to have a son, nothing on earth could make it happen.
Hannah, though, didn’t presume on God’s sovereignty as if her prayers didn’t matter. She prayed. As Hannah prayed, she also made a promise to God. She wasn’t bargaining with God. She was expressing her gratitude ahead of time. She would give her son to God as his servant for all his life. She also promised to offer her son as a Nazirite (Numbers 6:1-21). She said, in effect, “God, if you give me a son, I’ll give him to you.”
Eli, the priest, saw her mouthing her prayers, and he thought Hannah was drunk! Hannah explained the situation, and Eli declared that her prayer would be answered. Then “her face was no longer sad” (v. 18). She believed God’s promises and her first response was to worship (v. 19).
In verse 20, the sovereign God answered Hannah’s prayer — he gave her a son. Then, when Samuel was weaned, Hannah brought her precious baby boy to the temple at Shiloh, and there she gave him to Eli the priest.
Please read 1 Samuel 2:1-10, as we see Hannah’s prayer of thanksgiving to God. Do you pause and thank God enough for what he does for you? When we were children and someone would do something for us, our parents would ask us, “What do you say?” And we’d say thank you. Think about all that God has done for you. What do you say?
As we look at this story of Hannah and her great, ongoing prayer of faith, let me ask: Are you praying like that?
God is in complete control, yes, but there are times when the means he chooses to accomplish his will is through your prayers. So are you praying like Hannah? Are you asking him over and over for anything so big that it could only come about through God’s power? Most Christians don’t pray like that, and we wonder why God isn’t doing more in our lives and his Church.
If you are praying like that, never give up. Never give up. Until God tells you the answer is no, don’t stop asking. He is honored by that kind of prayer.
If you don’t have any prayers like that, take some time this week to come before God and say, “God, give me a burden about something that big, and give me faith like Hannah’s as I pray for it.”
God changed a nation through Hannah. There is no limit to what he can do through you.