As you read through some of the stories that appear in the Bible studies I have chosen, some of the women had one thing in common…their inability to conceive a child.   It was considered to be a disgrace if you could not bear your husband children to carry on his name.   Some of the biggest names in the bible were barren.  I touched on Sarah, Rachel, and Elizabeth in earlier articles.

But this study focuses on a woman who I truly love in the Bible, Hannah.    I always felt for Hannah.  Year after year, she, her husband Elkanah and his other wife, Peninnah (and her sons) went up to Shiloh to give offerings to the Lord.  Year after year, Peninnah would give poor Hannah so much grief that she had no children, that it would cause her so much heartbreak, that she would only cry and cry and not eat.   And her husband, bless his heart, tried to assuage her grief.  He gave her double portions of meat because he loved her so dearly.  But he really didn’t understand that giving her things wouldn’t  make up for what she was missing.  A child.   Have you ever experienced that?  Thinking that you can fill the hole in your heart with things?  But it never really helps make you feel any better?  You just have more stuff?  And the Bible tells us several times that God had closed her womb, so we can’t even blame her childlessness on Satan.

So this year, like every other she went up to Shiloh to give offerings to the Lord, but this year, she did something different.   Listen to her prayer in 1 Samuel 1:11 “  O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”    She trusted in the Lord enough to lay her pain out solely to Him, the great Healer.   She wanted HIM to heal her wounds.  She knew that nothing or nobody could replace the hole in her heart like the Lord.

She prayed so much that the temple priest, Eli, thought she was drunk.  But she assured him that she was not drunk, but that she was deeply troubled and pouring her soul out to the Lord.   Eli blessed her and sent her on her way.   When she went back home, she slept with her husband, the Lord remembered Hannah and opened her womb, and she conceived a son.

Notice one thing that is different from Sarah and Rachel.   Hannah (like Elizabeth) didn’t take things into her own hands.   She left them in God’s hands.  And she let God fill the missing hole in her life.   She trusted that God’s will would be done, and if he saw fit that she would have a child, that she would.   I strive to be so much like her.  I do have children, but I don’t have a really nice new car.  You want in on a secret….I don’t want one if God doesn’t want me to have one.   If it is God’s will that I have something like that, then I will.  In the meantime, I won’t be filling my driveway with new cars every 3 years or when a lease runs out.   I am satisfied with my 22 year old Crown Vic in my driveway.   It runs and it fills a need that I have.

Do you ever have that feeling like there is something missing in your life, and you’ve been trying to fill that hole with stuff?  It still doesn’t feel better at all, does it?   Go to the Lord and let the Lord bless you with gifts from him.   Let him fill your emptiness, like Hannah did.  She had her son, weaned him and gave him back to the Lord, just like she promised.    In those years that she didn’t have a child, she still praised God for what she had.  Have you done that recently?  Thanked God for what you have instead of grumbled about what you don’t have?   Seek God and he will bless your lives with more than you can imagine.   Will you give him that chance?

November 11, 2008
Categories: Biblical Studies . . Author: spicynutmeg

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