Recently I read 1 Samuel 1. It starts off with Hannah.
Picture it: Hannah is married to a man with another wife, the other wife has children and she doesn't. She has no children, yet she is the favorite of her husband. She goes to the temple to pray, and with tears streaming down her face she asks God for a son and she vows to give him back to the Lord. Eli walks up and asks if she is drunk. Eli was so out of touch with true prayer he didn't recognize that she was praying from the bottom of her heart. She tells him she was praying and he tells her may the Lord grant her what she asked for. She goes home and later she gives birth to a son, she brings him to the temple and Samuel goes on to live for the Lord.
I'm not focusing here on Samuel or on Hannah, but on praying.
1 Samuel 1:15 says she was "pouring out my heart before the Lord."
How often do we pour out our hearts before the Lord? I mean we can pray all the time, but how often do we truly pour out our hearts before the Lord? Jesus is my friend, and we can tell Him everything.
I've asked myself before "why do we pray when God already knows all about us and all that happens/has happened to us? Think about one of your closest friends. You know all about them, but you still want them to talk to you about what they've been doing/going through/ect.. Same with God. He wants us to tell Him what's been going on in our lives, what we've been struggling with, what we've been going through. He wants us to not be afraid to ask questions, to pour out our hearts before Him.
Hannah was in tears. She was praying fervently before the Lord. Her story reminds me of Someone else praying a few thousand years later.
Luke 22:41-44, (Jesus) "began to pray, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup away from Me—nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”
[Then an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.Being in anguish, He prayed more fervently, and His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.]"
Jesus prayed fervently. He prayed so fervently that His sweat became like drops of blood. That's some pretty serious praying. Jesus prayed to His Father. He was open with His Dad. He told Him that He wanted God to take that cup away from Him - we need to be open and honest with God - but He also said He wanted God's will to be done, not His - we need to accept God's will in all things that happen -.
To round up what we can learn about prayer from both of these passages from Scripture I'll make a few points...
- When we pray we need to pour out our hearts before God.
- We need to be open and honest with God.
- We need to accept His will no matter what it is because He knows best.
- And we need to just be ourselves with God.
Let's open up our hearts to God, pour out out hearts before God. Let's get to some serious praying.
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Do we pray fervently? Do we truly pour out our hearts to God? Or do we pray a quick prayer to "get it over with"?
Feel free to comment your answer(s) below :)
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