Request with Release Brings Joy

Then Hannah prayed: my heart rejoices in the LORD! Oh, how the LORD has blessed me! Now I have an answer for my enemies, as I delight in your deliverance. No one is holy like the LORD! There is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. I Samuel 2.1-2

Hannah had asked God for a son, God gave her a prophet, a man of prayer, an anointer of kings. But Hannah had told the Lord that if God would give her a son, she would give her back… now she has done just that.

May I draw your attention to the fact that though she was undoubtedly happy to receive her promised gift, she is even more full of joy when she released the gift back to God. She is certainly a living example of what Paul says in Acts 20.35; quoting Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Read again her song of thanksgiving, she is enraptured by the goodness of God, by his faith fullness, by his justice, by His salvation, by his ultimate return. In fact, there is only a brief allusion to babies at all in vs. 5, “The barren woman now has seven children”, and she is not even speaking about herself (though she will end up having five more children).

In other words, if you read carefully, the song isn’t about her gift, it is not about her answered prayer, it is a song of thanksgiving concerning the giver.

Her joy came in the release, in the giving away. Boy is that a lesson for us today.

And her joy, her thanksgiving was based on the giver of all good gifts, not on the gift itself.

I think there are some real life lessons there, a real important perspective for us to adopt and grab hold of for our own situation.

Think about your own time in prayer? Can you see the liberty, the joy and the thanksgiving that will come as we make our request and then release the answer into the hands of the Lord? I mean, whatever answer He gives, whenever that answer comes; it does not change who He is, nor how much He care for us, nor His faithfulness.

I wonder, if we could have asked Hannah right at this point in her life, “Hannah, do you now feel more complete, are you more fulfilled as a person now that you have a son. Have the days of “distress” now left you alone?”

I really think she would say, “You know, I found out my “completeness” and “fulfillment” didn’t really have anything to do with having a son or not… he wasn’t the answer; my fulfillment comes from the Lord”, and, “as far as the distress, still have plenty of that, life is full of that, but I know a faithful God and He sees me though”.

David put it this way,

"The Lord is my portion" Psalm 119.57

It is you Lord that I crave, that I need, that I desire:

Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; there is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count. Psalm 40.5