Expectant (Daily Devotional)

Welcome, I'm so delighted to be with each one of you, this week we have a very special study from the lives of women of the Bible. There are so many different women, and their lives speak of the faith and worship which they had in their God. So, we're going to look at different ones of them and see what we can receive from it. Though we are looking at lives of women, there’s not to say that only women can learn from the study, the insights are for everyone, and we can apply it in our lives.

Today I want us to look at the life of Hannah. Let's read a couple of scriptures here, first Samuel chapter one and verse 15, ‘but Hannah answered and said, no, my Lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink but have poured out my soul before the Lord.’ Hannah's condition was one of great adversity, not because something was happening to her externally, yes, of course she was facing the taunts of arrival, but she also had good things happening in her life and she had a very loving husband who was supportive of her. But at the same time there was a desire of her heart that was still unfulfilled and that was a desire for a child. We see Hannah persisting in the presence of God. This verse 15 that we just read, reveals to us that whenever the family went for worship to the temple, Hannah would be there pouring out her heart, even crying to God and we read the way she was praying, there was no sound coming out, but her lips would move which is why the priest thought that she was probably drunk. Then we see what happens because of her faith, God blesses Hannah, God gives her a son and she named him Samuel because God heard her prayer, and we know that Samuel is one of those leading prophets.

During the days of Samuel, the word was rare is what we read, meaning, people did not hear God's voice, but here was a man who heard God's voice and he was instrumental in blessing the children of Israel with the prophetic anointing and that was an outcome, you could say in a way of the devotion of this lady by the name of Hannah. So, the different things that we can learn from Hannah's life, it was a life of adversity because there was an internal struggle that she had. What do we do when we carry these internal struggles? The best thing to do is to go to God's presence. We see that Hannah's expectation was from God. She went to God. Like Psalms chapter 121 says, ‘I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.’ So, Hannah's expectation was from God, and she knew that God was her deliverer, it was only God who could do something about her situation, and it was so beautiful to read in first Samuel chapter 1 and verse 19, that as a result of her persistent prayer, she was a woman who did not give up in prayer, she went to the extent of crying and weeping and releasing the distress of her soul in prayer continually till God answered her. And so, in first Samuel chapter 1 and verse 19, we read that God remembered her. Later on, we see that Hannah worshiped God, she even surrendered her son to be in the work of the ministry. So that is the life of Hannah for us and just the way she was expectant from God, I want to encourage us to expect from God.

Let's play together, Heavenly father, we pray that you would give us this heart that seeks you and pursues you. We thank you that our help comes from you and each one of us will receive from you, because you are a deliverer, in Jesus’s name. We pray Amen.

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