[549 words]
Samuel was one of the best men in the Bible. We read about his good life of faith and justice in 1 Samuel, but it is a statement made hundreds of years later about him that tells us just how godly a man he was. In Jeremiah’s day the people of Judah were so wicked that no amount of praying could save the nation from punishment. God even told Jeremiah not to pray for them (Jer. 11:14). To make this point stronger, God said that even if Moses and Samuel were alive and pleaded with him to spare Judah He would not (Jer. 15:1). When God wanted to use two people as examples of godliness, He chose Moses and Samuel.
Samuel was a great man in spite of unfaithful men who were close to him. He was brought up from a young age with Eli in the service of the Lord at the tabernacle. Eli was not a just man, but Samuel grew up to be one of the most just men in Scripture. Samuel’s two sons were wicked, but he did not let them pull him down to their level. He maintained his integrity to the end (1 Sam. 12).
The story of Samuel happened because of a great prayer. His godly mother Hannah in that prayer vowed that if God would give her a son she would give him to the service of the Lord all the days of his life (1 Sam. 1:11). The Lord heard her prayer and gave her a son, and that is how the story of Samuel began.
Hannah’s prayer for a son was no light request. It was, as James would later say our prayers should be, an “effectual fervent prayer” (James 5:16). “And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore” (1 Sam. 1:10). The anguish she felt in her soul drove her to her knees. Some of the most memorable prayers in the Bible and some of the most earnest prayers in our lives are offered to God in times of great distress.
What caused this pain in Hannah’s heart? She had a husband who loved her, but she had no children and that broke her heart. To a Jewish woman being childless was a heavy burden to bear. But there was something else that contributed to her heartache: the other wife of her husband. This woman was mean. She intentionally said things to hurt Hannah because she could have no children (1 Sam. 1:6). She “provoked her sore” or “provoked her severely to make her miserable” (NKJV). It was hard enough to endure being childless, but to have a spiteful person rubbing salt in her wound made Hannah’s grief almost unbearable. Her situation reminds us of the words of the old hymn, “Where could I go but to the Lord?”
Samuel lived because of his mother’s prayer. That prayer was said because of great stress. That stress was brought about by an affliction she did not choose and by a hateful woman who resented her for no reason. Yet a situation that began in tears ended in the life of a great and godly man!
Who else but God can bring good out of such tragedy?
Kerry Duke
West End Church of Christ
Livingston, TN