(Part 1)

JBTM Robert D. Bergen
31
in connection with Noah when God ended the flood (Gen. 8:1), with Abraham when God
delivered Lot from Sodom (Gen. 19:29), with Isaac’s childless wife Rachel when she became
pregnant with twins (Gen. 30:22), and with Israel when God began to deliver his people from
Egyptian slavery (Exod. 2:24). To say “the Lord remembered” was to say that the Lord was
about to do something especially good and important.
In this case the Lord remembered Hannah, and she “conceived and gave birth to a
son” (v. 20a). The Lord of Hosts (see v. 11)—Yahweh of Armies, the mightiest warrior in
the universe—had listened to the tearful request of a socially insignificant, barren peasant
woman and granted it! To memorialize Hannah’s courageous request—one forged in the
furnace of emotional pain—and God’s amazing grace, that son would be named Samuel. That
child, conceived by faith and given by grace, would someday stand as the greatest spiritual in
Israelite history since the days of Moses. That child would become Israel’s last and greatest
judge, and serve as Israel’s first kingmaker.
And so I leave you with two questions. First, has God given you the gift of pain? Is there
some situation or person in your life that serves as a constant source of trouble and emotional
distress? If so, I have a second question: What are doing with that pain? You know, God could
have taken that condition or person out of your life, but he hasn’t done it—at least not yet. So
let him use that condition, that person, as a shaping tool in your life. Let the pain teach you
perseverance and mental toughness, but most of all let it arouse in you a deepened awareness
of your need for God in your life. Let it inspire in you a greater urgency in your prayers, and
a clearer vision of God as the one warrior in the universe strong enough to stand with you
through every trial of life and give you ultimate victory. Let Hannah’s story become yours.