Waiting for an answer…….

We left Hannah walking away from the Lord’s temple. Waiting for God to hear her prayer and respond. She’d been desperately crying out to God for an end to her childlessness.

And now she had to wait.

God’s response? He heard. He had compassion. He answered.

Early the next morning they arose and worshipped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.”  1 Samuel 1:19-20

The name Samuel sounds like the Hebrew for ‘heard by God’. When Hannah became pregnant, there was no doubt in her mind that she had been heard by God.

Every pregnancy is a miracle. Every safe delivery of a healthy baby is something to celebrate. Because as we know, there is so much that can go wrong and sometimes does go wrong. It is good to give thanks to God for every new precious life that enters this world.

Sometimes when we cry out to God in anguish and despair, we get the answer that we want. We can see that God has heard us and had compassion and answered our prayer. Someone close to us responds well to treatment and is healed. We find a way to communicate honestly and effectively with our partner again. Our loved one was not in the car crash on the motorway as they travelled home from a conference. We find a talking therapy that looks like it is going to help. Someone offers to help us out financially. We get that job.

Then we celebrate. Then we praise God for what an amazing God He is. Then we shout about the power of prayer.

But sometimes God doesn’t seem to hear. He doesn’t seem to have compassion. He doesn’t seem to answer.

However loud or hard we pray.

However frequently or fervently we cry out to Him.

However many people join us in prayer.

There is silence. No change. No resolution. No answer.

Then we have nothing to celebrate. Then we struggle to praise. Then we say nothing about prayer.

There is a fantastic book out there which tackles this topic head on. ‘God on mute’ by Pete Greig is an honest account of one man’s experience of what appears to be unanswered prayer. And this man is one of the founding members of the 24-7 Prayer Movement – now an international, interdenominational Christian community in 63 countries!

God on Mute was written out of Pete’s own experience of the miraculous power of prayer alongside the pain of unanswered prayer and the common human struggle to find faith with that paradox. Just after the birth of the 24-7 Prayer Movement and of his second child Pete’s wife, Samie was diagnosed with a massive brain tumor. Subsequent surgery to remove the cancer was successful but she continues to suffer terrible epilepsy and his deepest prayers for her healing did not work. Tracking Christ’s own unanswered prayer through Gethsemane and Golgotha, the book leads the reader to Easter Sunday where miracles arise – often when we least expect it. Pete is passionate about the message of God on Mute because it will help many hurting people to hang onto God when they need him more than ever before. Our hope is that God on Mute will inspire people to persevere in prayer and to admit to their struggles as well as their encouragements.

Read this book because every human who engages in communication with God will have similar experiences and questions throughout their lives. Life is fragile. None of us knows what is around the corner, what news we may receive today.

I too am passionate about helping hurting people to hang onto God when they need Him more than ever before.

I want to do what I can to inspire people to persevere in prayer.

I do want us all to be able to honestly share our struggles about prayer as well as our encouragements.

Because I believe that God always hears when we cry out to Him. He always has compassion. He always answers.

Just not how we wish or hope for or expect or want sometimes.

God is always there with us in our struggles and suffering.

Just not how we wish or hope for or expect or want sometimes.

Back to Hannah. She made a promise to God, remember. A really rash promise, some would say –

“Lord Almighty, if you will only look on 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.”  1 Samuel 1:11

She didn’t mean that, surely. She’s not going to go through with it. Who would beg for a child and then be able to give him up?

But she does. She stays true to her word. She keeps her promise.

When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always.”

“Do what seems best to you,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the Lord make good his word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshipped the Lord there.  1 Samuel 1:21-28

This is beyond understanding. I cannot get my head round anyone being able to do this.

How did she know it would be safe?

How could she be sure that her young son would be cared for and loved?

Because God had performed a miracle in her life and she now could trust God wholeheartedly to care for her boy.

Her faith must have been so strong: God had been there for her and He would be there for Samuel.

To some extent, any child that we are blessed with is only lent to us for a season. We care for them and love them but we do not own them. At some stage, we will have to let them go.

For Hannah, this came sooner than it does for most of us.

But it will come.

Thinking of all of you struggling with crying out to God today; struggling with letting go; struggling with seemingly unanswered prayer; struggling with finding God in the midst of tragedy; struggling to find words of comfort……

May you know today with certainty that God hears and that He has compassion and that He does answer.