The Prayer of Hannah/The Message of Prayer, by Daniel Montgomery

In our Old Testament reading, we come to the prayer of Hannah today. So I wanted to pass along some info on a good resource on prayer in general and the prayer of Hannah in particular. There’s a guy named Timothy Chester. He co-authored a book called Total Church with a guy named Steve Timmis that has had a lot of influence on my thinking about mission. (p.s. – we’re bringing Steve Timmis to Sojourn to headline a conference in November.)

Well, Tim Chester is the other half of this team and he has written a great book about prayer called The Message of Prayer. In his book, Chester takes us on a tour through the prayers found in the Scriptures, showing how those people “faced similar struggles to ours, and we take guidance from their examples.” And he concludes that to be a people of the Book is to be a people of prayer, and to be a people of prayer is to be a people of the Book. I like that.

Here are some other thoughts I enjoyed, specifically from chapter 8 on the prayer of Hannah. (p.s.s. – Sojourn’s own Jamie Barnes has written a beautiful song about the prayer of Hannah. Listen to it here.)

“Hannah’s response to Peninnah, is a model of true piety. We are not told of any rancour on her part towards Peninnah. Neither does she complain about God’s actions or question his love. Agency is clearly ascribed to God by the narrator. Twice we are told that God is the one who closed her womb (1:5, 6O). But Hannah’s faith remains strong. She remains trusting. And indeed she makes the response of faith, which is to pray.”

“Prayer is an acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty and care. Hannah pours out her anguish and bitterness not in aggression to Peninnah but in faith to God.”

“Pouring out my soul is a great description of Christian prayer. Prayer is not the quietening of the soul. It is an expression in faith of the passions of the heart.”

“Prayer is not an art. It is a cry. You cannot pretend it or practice it. You can only express it.”

“It is the Father who graciously invites us to converse; it is the Son who mediates through his death; and it is the Spirit who awakens within us the desire to pray.”

“The key idea in this song is that Hannah sees what has happened to her against a bigger canvas. Hannah’s movement from grief to joy is a sign of the greater movement that God is achieving through his plan of salvation.”

“Hannah’s story [of answered prayer] is told not because it is typical, but because it is untypical. Hannah’s prayer is not granted because her prayer was more devout or her anguish more acute or her vow more sincere. Her prayer was answered because of God’s grace.”

“Sometimes congregational praise can have an element of unreality about it – we sing as if all is good when many in the congregation are hurting. However, we can sing with joy not by denying the pain of the present but surmounting it through the Gospel with the songs of heaven. We do not deny reality, but we can counter it with the promise of a new reality.”

“Hannah’s story is told because it is part of a bigger story – the story of God’s provision of a Savior. Hannah’s son, Samuel, will re-establish the rule of God over the people of God.”