Twelve Extraordinary Women by John MacArthur

Author:John MacArthur [John MacArthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

LOVE FOR HEAVEN

Hannah obviously had a deep and abiding love for God. Her spiritual passion was seen in the fervency of her prayer life. She was a devout woman whose affections were set on heavenly things, not on earthly things. Her desire for a child was no mere craving for self-gratification. It wasn't about her. It wasn't about getting what she wanted. It was about self-sacrificegiving herself to that little life in order to give him back to the Lord. Centuries earlier, Jacob's wife Rachel prayed, "Give me children, or else I die!" (Gen. 30:1 NKJV). Hannah's prayer was more modest than that. She did not pray for "children," but for one son. She begged God for one son who would be fit to serve in the tabernacle. If God would give her that son, she would give him back to God. Hannah's actions proved that she wanted a child not for her own pleasure, but because she wanted to dedicate him to the Lord.

Naturally, then, the Lord was the One to whom she turned to plead her case. It was significant, I think, that despite the bitter agony Hannah suffered because of her childlessness, she never became a complainer or a nag. There's no suggestion that she ever grumbled against God or badgered her husband about her childlessness. Why should she whine to Elkanah? Children are an inheritance from the Lord (Ps. 127:3; Gen. 33:5). Hannah seems to have understood that, so she took her case straight to the Lord. Despite her disappointment and heartache, she remained faithful to YHWH. In fact, frustration seems to have turned her more and more to the Lord, not away from him. And she persisted in prayer.

That's a beautiful characteristic, and it was Hannah's distinctive virtue: constant, steadfast faith. First Samuel 1:12 speaks of her prayer as continual: "She continued praying before the LORD" (NKJv, emphasis added). She stayed before the Lord, even with a broken heart, pouring out tearful prayers. Her trials thus had the benefit of making her a woman of prayer. She truly exemplified what it meant to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17; Luke 18:1-8).

The value of persistent and passionate prayer is one of the central lessons from Hannah's life. Notice how the passion of her praying is described in 1 Samuel 1:10-11: "And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, `O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed 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"' (NKJv, emphasis added).

There were two parts to Hannah's vow. One was the promise to give the child to the Lord. Subsequent events indicated that by this pledge she intended to devote him to full-time service in the tabernacle. The last part of Hannah's promise entailed a vow never to cut his hair.

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