Asking in Faith

In reading through the Bible in my daily time with God last week, I noticed something powerful in the account of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1.  You probably know the story, how Hannah desperately wanted a child, but was barren. To make it worse, her husband’s other wife seemed to have no problem bearing children, and taunted Hannah mercilessly.

This apparently went on for quite some time before things finally came to a head. When they made their yearly pilgrimage to Shiloh to worship at the tabernacle, Hannah was so distressed, she couldn’t eat. Going to the tabernacle, she poured her heart out to God with such intensity that the high priest Eli assumed she was drunk and started to rebuke her.

But as I read through the account of Hannah’s struggle and prayer this week, what astonished me was not her intensity, or her respectful response to Eli’s mistaken rebuke, but what the Bible records she did next:

“So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.” (v.18)

Yes, Eli had pronounced a blessing, saying, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of Him.” (v.17)

But that doesn’t exactly seem like a definitive pronouncement that God would give Hannah what she asked. So why did Hannah return from the tabernacle with such peace?

I don’t think it was just Eli’s words. I think it was also the fact that she had gone before the Lord and poured out her soul to Him. She had surrendered her desire for a child, and promised that if God did give her a son, she would dedicate him to the service of the Lord.

This to me shows a heart desperate, yes, but also full of faith. Not only did she have faith that He could give her a child in the first place, and was willing to give the desire of her heart back to God, she also had faith that He could be trusted with that child.

She asked in faith, then went her way believing that God had heard. James 1 tells us,

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” (5-6)

And in James 5 we find the encouraging truth that The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

We can go to God with anything and everything, and when we are right with God, we can know that He has heard us. And more than that, we know from Romans 8:28 that God has already promised to work things together for our good and His glory.

So, dear reader, when was the last time you poured your soul out to God?

When we lay all before Him, reserving nothing, hiding nothing, we—like Hannah—can go in peace, resting in the joyful fact that God has heard.

“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. But verily God hath heard me, He hath attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me.” 

Psalm 66:18-20