"SHE CONTINUED PRAYING"PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE IN THE PRACTICE OF PRAYER

 So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD.

And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.

And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.

And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth.

Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.

And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.

And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.

Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.

I Samuel 1: 9 - 16

"The Bible teaches us to ask and keep on asking until the answer comes. It was said of Martin Luther, he so bombarded the gates of Heaven with prayer, God had no choice but to answer him. "

- Kenny McComas

I. SUPPLICATIONS "WEPT SORE"

t wasn't a beautiful prayer. It was the kind of ragged prayer that comes choking out of the heart in mangled, inaudible phrases, all ripped up like a failed dissection project. Like a crucified martyr. It had no form, no comeliness, just the raw gasps of a soul at the breaking point. A soul floundering.

Floundering and pleading for help.IIt was the kind of prayer that reaches the heart of God. The kind that, like blind Bartimaeus, throws dignity to the wind, and comes in the naked, primitive honesty that knows nothing of form or ceremony. The kind that, all exposed and vulnerable, sees no shame in begging God for what it cannot claim or afford.

God had heard many such prayers before. And since that day so long ago when Hannah wept in the Tabernacle, he has heard many more of them, all marked by that same unpolished transparency. In fact, it is the only kind of prayer that he ever listens to - the unvarnished pleadings of the heart, uttered in the nakedness of the soul.

This was the secret of Jacob's great prayer victory at Beth-El. The prophet Hosea attributes his success, not to his intellect, not to his eloquence, but to his broken-heartedness, his tears:

"Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;" (Hosea 12: 4)

II. STAGGERING, WEAK SUPPLIANTS

The Apostle Paul knew something about this sort of praying. In Romans 8: 26, after baring the helpless condition of his own inner self in chapter seven, after his tortured transparency had unveiled the wretched turmoil of a man at war with his own flesh, he said, "for we know not what we should pray for as we ought". Here was the great Apostle Paul, one of the mightiest saints of all time, throwing off all pretense of credential or insight or eloquence before the fiery crucible of prayer and admitting his complete and total ignorance and inadequacy. "Our infirmities", he calls them. He knows nothing of prose or poetry or intellectual sophistication when it comes to prayer. For the Apostle Paul, prayer is

little more than a pleading heart cry that only the Holy Spirit can translate into something worthy of Heaven's throne room.

Many areas of our Christian lives bear this character. We long for something more polished, more sophisticated, more dignified and graceful than what we manage to achieve, but instead we just go limping along, dreaming inwardly of elegant penmanship while scarcely tracing out the crudest alphabet of Christ-likeness before the eyes of those around us. Our hearts are sincere, but for all that, it isn't always pretty. And others can only see our deficiencies, the missing notes of our Christianity. Like Eli, they interpret us wrongly. They mark our mouth, so to speak, without the faintest concept of our heart condition.

III. SOVEREIGN WISDOM'S SUFFICIENCY

But there is consolation in knowing that even this struggle is Sovereignly ordained by Almighty God to teach us humility and to prevent us from becoming inflated with a prideful self-satisfaction with our prayer life. It is a constant axiom of the Christian faith that "no flesh should glory in his presence" (I Corinthians 1: 29). In Galatians 6: 14 Paul states it like this:

"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

Commenting on this verse, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:

"The word that the apostle uses here is a very strong one. He says 'God forbid that I should boast.' He makes his boast of it. He says these Jews are the people who want to have you circumcised in order that they may boast about their converts. They are out for their own success and their own name. 'Oh,' says the apostle, I boast in nothing, and God forbid that I should, save in the cross of Christ.'" i

Another great Christian in that same Puritan tradition paraphrased it like this:

"Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,

save in the death of Christ, my God;

all the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to his blood."ii

So just as we are to glory in the cross of Christ, conversely, it is to be our constant endeavor to humble ourselves in the sight of God. Scripture tells us in James 4: 6 unequivocally that

"God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble."

The Lord Jesus Christ stated it like this:

"And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." (Matthew 23: 12)

This much-neglected principle of humility is so essential to any genuine Christian lifestyle and activity that the Lord even subjected the Apostle Paul to a spiritual adversary in order to prevent egotism and pride from infecting his heart and mind and hindering his ministry. In I Corinthians 12, he describes this grueling affliction and his spiritual struggle over it:

"For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be , or that he heareth of me.

And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." (I Corinthians 12: 6 - 10)

This principle has application to our prayer life as well. We long to be better prayer warriors, to be able to pray masterfully, beautifully, with prosaic elegance. But the Lord tells us in essence, "That 's not what I want. That doesn't please me. Pride and self-satisfaction have no place in prayer, in my presence. They only hinder your effectiveness. Don't try to impress me with your prayers. Just come to me to as you are, in the nakedness of your soul. Pray in the Spirit and let the Spirit of Adoption translate your prayers and give them wings into my throne room. Don't seek sufficiency in your intellect or oratorical skill, but in my Spirit." Zechariah 4: 6 states it like this:

"Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts."

IV. SUPPLICATING WITHOUT STOPPING

Another important principle for a successful prayer life is the principle of persistence. We notice in verse 12 that Hannah "continued praying". There are times when the earnest prayer warrior is mightily tempted to give up and accept defeat, especially since such prayer can be so emotionally exhausting. But the Scriptures repeatedly assure us that God wants us to persevere in prayer. Jesus gave the parable of the importunate widow to teach us "that men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18: 1). That parable was vividly enforced by the example of the Syrophenician woman whose daughter was possessed of a devil. Her persistent prayer of faith pleased the Lord and he gave her exactly what she had asked him for (Mark 7: 25 - 30). Elsewhere, the Lord Jesus Christ gave the parable of the man who came to his neighbor's house by night, asking for bread. He said "I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth" (Luke 11: 8). And it is highly noteworthy that Jacob, when wrestling with the Angel refused to let him go until he had blessed him (Genesis 32: 24 - 28). The Apostle Paul sums all of this up in a three-word commandment for us to "Pray without ceasing" (I Thessalonians 5: 17). And the prophet Samuel went so far in the Old Testament as to acknowledge that to cease in prayer would be to sin against God (I Samuel 12: 23).

V. SENSATIONAL, WONDERFUL SUCCESS

What is left to say about this passage than that Hannah reaped the wonderful benefits of a humble, yet persistent prayer life? And that is the lesson given in all of the examples above. God blesses this kind of prayer. They that go forth with weeping to meet the Lord in their prayer closet, if they pray in faith, if they pray in Jesus' name (John 16: 24), persistent before the throne of Grace, come again with rejoicing.

Dear friend, what burden are you bearing that leaves you, like Hannah, completely heartbroken? What secret desires do long to obtain, though, as with Hannah, they seem humanly impossible? If you truly believed that God would ease or even remove those burdens, wouldn't you fly to your prayer closet and cast all your care upon him (I Peter 5: 7)? If you truly believed that God would willingly give you the very desire of your heart, wouldn't you run to him to obtain the blessing that you are yearning for? Why don't you do so? Learn from this beautiful, wonderful example in the life of Hannah and find joy and fulfillment in a prayer life that asks and receives exactly what if asks for (John 16: 24).

i Martyn Lloyd-Jones Walking with God Day by Day (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003) .ii Hymnsite.com http://www.hymnsite.com/lyrics/umh298.sht (accessed 15 May 2014).