I’ve really been captivated by the story of Hannah found in the Old Testament (1 Samuel 1 &2). It’s a story I’ve read a hundred times and I’ve always loved the story about a woman who vows her son to God. Recently I came across a Bible study on her story… a study that was meant to last five days. However, I’ve been stuck on it for more than two weeks…I can’t get past it. It’s not that I can’t get to the end of the study…I’ve done that several times. I can’t move on.
Several aspects of Hannah’s story has me asking more questions and wanting to know more. Other aspects hit me differently as if I had never read the story before. But Hannah’s response to Eli is where I am stuck today.
If you don’t know the story… read it. I can’t do it justice. But in short, very short, Hannah is a woman without a son and prays for a son which she vows she will give back to God. You give me a son = I will give him back to You. This vow is made through prayer at the Tabernacle door where an old priest was sitting. He sees her praying so earnestly and thinks she is drunk. And while there is a lot to unpack just in that first chunk of the story, today I am stuck on Hannah’s response to Eli’s accusations.
In 1 Samuel 1:15-16 she says “No, my lord, I am woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.”
Stop for a minute and consider a few things….
1). This can’t be the first time Hannah prayed for a son. And I am sure prayed hard for a son. But this time it’s described as “pouring out my soul before the Lord.”
2). This prayer wasn’t for just a “want” or a pleasantry. It was for something big. Something only God could give and something that would change Hannah’s life.
3). Hannah finds herself at the door of the Tabernacle to pray because her and her family are there for an annual feast. An annual feast… meaning Hannah could have gone up to pray before the Lord any year prior to this one. Aren’t you just dying to ask Hannah what changed? Why that year? I am… I desperately want to know more.
Before I go off on my own diatribe, let me go back to the part that I am stuck on today…. it’s Hannah’s own description of her prayer to God. “Pouring out my soul.”
I asked my friend Google for how many times we find “poured/pouring out my soul or heart” in the Bible… here was its answer:
Key Verses Using the Exact or Similar Phrasing
Psalm 62:8 ("Pour out your heart before him"): Direct command to trust God and openly release emotional burdens to Him. [1, 2]
1 Samuel 1:15 ("I have poured out my soul before the LORD"): Hannah's statement to Eli explaining her tearful, silent prayer while facing deep personal grief. [1, 2]
Lamentations 2:19 ("Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord"): An urgent call to weep and bring raw, unreserved grief before God. [1]
Psalm 142:2 ("I pour out my complaint before him"): David's description of declaring his distress and trouble to God while hiding from enemies. [1]
Job 30:16 / Psalm 42:4 ("My soul is poured out within me"): Expressions of deep personal sorrow and emotional exhaustion. [1]
Only a handful of times… isn’t that interesting?!? I find that fascinating and I also find it fascinating that each of the references above are steeped in heavy, heavy emotions… grief, distress, sorrow, emotional exhaustion. That’s the last one that gets me… “emotional exhaustion.” I know that all too well. And there are times I feel in those moments and seasons that I have prayed hard for God to move, to do something, to act. But I have felt unseen, unheard, forgotten. My head knows that isn’t the case, but my heart felt abandoned with no word or rescue from God.
But did I pour out my soul? Or (and this is the answer if I am truthful) did I pray only for me to find a way for ME to fix things, rescue myself or for power through on my own accord? Yep, that’s me. It’s not pouring… it’s dribbling. Pouring is a cup turned upside down…. nothing left… every drop ran out. It reminds me of when the woman poured perfume on Jesus’ feet… that was such a sacrificial act, that bottle was turned upside down. Her heart and her bottle emptied in worship. Hannah’s heart, emptied in prayer.
Did you see that the first reference listed above is a “direct command” — let’s just stop there. We are commanded to pour out our hearts? And to trust God with our emotional burdens? I had to look at this scripture in more context:
5 Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from him.
6 Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
7 My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
8 Trust in him at all times, you people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
In Hannah’s story she prays… no, pours out her heart before the Lord… and then is blessed by the priest who thought she was drunk. That part makes me laugh a little. But… she goes on about her feast and the Bible says her face was no longer sad. Nothing had changed… she didn’t walk away with a son nor did she have anything to prove that this prayer would be different. BUT… she found rest in God. She found hope in Him. She poured out her heart and found Him to be a rock, a fortress for her so she no longer had to be shaken. She found a God who she could depend on, and in the act of pouring out her spirit, she trusted God with her burdens.
What Hannah did NOT do is pray and walk away devising a plan to get the job done within her own might. Just reference Sarah, Abraham and Hagar… that was a twisted infertility story. No, Hannah left her heavy heart at the door of the Tabernacle and in its place, walked away with hope and trust. When you look at Hannah’s prayer, she wanted to know that God had not forgotten her, dismissed her. She wanted to know she wasn’t less than because she hadn’t had a son. And in that doorway, her heart emptied through words and tears, a blessing from a priest gives her that fulfillment.. she was seen, heard and blessed. In that moment, no son, but in its place… hope and encouragement.
Looking at Hannah’s story makes me approach prayer differently. Sure… there’s those “everyday” prayers but what am I turning my heart upside down over? Am I doing it at all? I can tell you if I am not, it’s not because life is easy and there’s no emotional burdens. That is not the case over here on this side of the screen. So, if there are reasons to turn my heart upside down and pour it out to the Lord, I wonder why that isn’t happening?? Is it trusting God with it? Is it that I don’t trust God can handle my frustrations and feelings? I think it’s also trusting I can leave them at the door of the Tabernacle like Hannah did. Is my trust in God such that I can leave them and believe He has those prayers, my heart, in His hands and it’s all good? What if Hannah hadn’t been given Samuel? What if God saw fit to leave her without child?
That’s what I am afraid of… that God won’t answer me or won’t answer how and when I would like it. Oh… that’s pride talking… that’s Christie thinking she knows better than the God of the Universe, the very One who gave her life. But boy do I struggle in that. I think I also struggle to be honest about what’s burdening my heart. The things I go to God and pray for … such small potatoes compared to what I am holding onto. Like He doesn’t already know. I can certainly see “trust” as the issue here.
There’s a time in my life I can point to specifically where I turned my heart upside down before the Lord. And I can say for a fact that I left that spot different, my heart and my face no longer sad or distraught, but my circumstances not immediately changed. I know God’s hand in my life, but how quickly I forget how much He loves me.
Whatever is on your heart… my heart… here’s to leveling up our trust in the One who knows us better than we know ourselves, our refuge, our rock, our mighty fortress. Here’s to leaving behind prayers dribbled out, but to turning our hearts upside down before the Lord. And imagine what that would look like… what our lives would look like… what the world around us would look like if us, children of God, would get good at turning our hearts upside down.
