72. The Joy of Having God: The Beginning of 1 Samuel

G' day, and welcome to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

Dave here.

What do you do when you're sad or in trouble?

When it feels like things are going wrong?

When life has become hard, do you get angry, yell at other people and throw things?

Do you try and make yourself happy and forget about all the hard things?

Do you ask for help?

In today's story, we're going to meet someone who is desperately sad.

She decides to ask exactly the right person for help.

And the way she's helped doesn't just help her.

It actually helps an entire country.

Get ready for our next episode of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

Picture it.

It's about 1100 years before Jesus came into the world.

Israel is in the land that God gave them.

They don't have a king, and things are going badly.

The people keep ignoring God.

God punishes them.

They come back to God, and God gives them a leader to save them.

Each time that happens, though, things seem to get worse.

Their sin gets worse, their leaders get worse.

And even when they have a good leader, he eventually dies.

And it all starts over again.

Our story starts in 1 Samuel, chapter 1, verse 1, where we meet a man.

This man is the leader of his family.

His name is Elkanah.

You might remember that Israel is divided up into tribes.

The tribes are a little bit like a cross between states, like we have in Australia and America, and really big family groups.

Elkanna is from the tribe of Ephraim.

Elkannor's married, but, uh, oh, he's actually married to two wives at the same time.

That happens a bunch of times in the Old Testament, but every time it happens, it goes really badly.

It's one of the ways that God tells us that marriage should only be between one man and one woman at the same time.

One of Elkanna's wives is named Hannah.

The other is Peninnah.

Peninnah has children, but Hannah doesn't have any.

In fact, she can't have any, which is super sad.

Every year, Elkanah, his two wives, and his children go to a town called Shiloh.

Shiloh is where the special tent called the tabernacle is kept.

The Tabernacle is what Israel had before they built a temple.

It's where people could go to make sacrifices to the Lord.

After sacrificing an animal, Israelites would give some to the priests and they could eat the rest themselves.

Each year, Elkanah does something that he thinks is really nice but is actually really hurtful.

He gives some of the meat to his wife, Penina.

And her children.

And then he gives twice as much to Hannah.

He thinks he's being nice by saying, hey, I love you, even though God's made it so you can't have children.

But just think about it for a moment.

How do you think Penina's feeling?

She does have children, something that's meant to be really good.

And yet Elkanna's treating her like she's half as important as Hannah.

And just think about how Hannah's feeling.

Every year, she gets reminded in front of all the family that she doesn't have any children.

Penina is really angry every year when this happens.

She teases Hannah and makes her feel really bad for not having kids.

It isn't Hannah's fault she doesn't have them, though.

God's decided to not let her have them.

But Penina just wants Hannah to feel really bad.

And it works.

Hannah feels so bad, she cries and doesn't eat a single thing.

So all that extra food that Elkannor's given her, she doesn't touch it again.

Elkannor tries to be kind, but instead he says something that's really hurtful.

In verse eight, he says, hannah, why are you crying?

Why won't you eat?

Why are you sad?

Don't I mean more to you than ten son?

Um, hello.

Being married to you isn't the same as having children.

Especially when you're so silly and thoughtless in how you treat your wives.

Let me tell you, no one is giving Elkanna the Husband of the Year award.

Well, this goes on year after year.

Penina treating Hannah really badly for not having kids.

Elkanna trying to help Hannah but being really useless at it.

Thankfully, Hannah decides to do something much better than what either of them have done so far.

She decides to go to the one person who can actually fix this.

She decides to go to God.

Hannah goes and stands outside the tabernacle.

The high priest Eli is sitting there on a seat.

Hannah's crying and crying, and she prays to God.

In fact, she makes a promise to God.

In verse 11, she says, Lord of Heaven's armies, see how bad I feel.

Remember me.

Don't forget me.

If you will give me a son, I will give him back to you all his life.

And no one will ever use a razor to cut his hair.

Um, does that feel like a bit of a weird prayer to you?

If you're asking for a son, why would you say, if you give me a son, I'll give him back to you?

Isn't that like saying, if you give Me?

A chocolate bar.

I'll give it back to you.

What was the point of me having a chocolate bar in the first place?

And what's this whole thing about not ever cutting his hair with a razor?

Does that mean that they can use scissors?

What's going on?

Okay, okay, let's pull back here a bit.

What is she actually asking for?

She's asking for God to take care of her.

To remember her and not forget her.

God never forgets anything or anyone, but sometimes it feels like he does.

And so Hannah's asking God to help her in her sadness.

Of course he'll help her by giving her a son, but she'll be so thankful that she'll give that son back to God.

Because who does she love even more than her son?

God.

The God who will care for her in her sadness.

The God who's kind and loving.

And that thing about not cutting his hair?

Well, sometimes people did that for a while to show that they were having a special time thinking about or serving God.

But Hannah's son, he's going to do that for his whole life.

The last person in the Bible to do that is in the Book of Judges.

You might have heard of him.

His name was Samson.

And God used him to.

To save Israel.

So if the last guy to be like this was a saviour, what will Hannah's son be if God gives her a son?

Well, while Hannah's praying, something strange happens.

Eli, the high priest, the man who's meant to help the Israelites trust God so they don't need a saviour, makes a massive mistake.

He sees Hannah.

She's moving her lips, but she's saying the words of the prayer inside her head instead of thinking, oh, here's a godly lady who's praying to the Lord.

That's great.

He thinks she's been drinking too much wine or beer.

What a bad, evil woman.

He couldn't be more wrong.

He walks up to her and he says, stop getting drunk.

Throw away your wine.

And she's like, uh, what do you mean?

What are you talking about?

She replies in verse 15, no, master, I've not drunk any wine or beer.

I'm a woman who is deeply troubled.

I was telling the Lord about all my problems.

Don't think of me as an evil woman.

I've been praying because of my many troubles and much sadness.

How embarrassing for Eli, the guy who's meant to help the Israelites pray to God.

Can't even tell when someone actually is praying.

It's starting to sound like Israel really does need a Saviour.

Eli stumbles out a reply in verse 17.

He says, oh God, go in peace.

May the God of Israel give you what you asked of him.

And Hannah goes away.

In fact, she goes away happy.

She'd come in great sadness and tears and now she isn't sad anymore.

It's not that God's answered her prayer.

She doesn't know if God's going to say yes or no, whether he'll give her a baby or not.

It's just that already God's calmed her fears.

She came to God with her problem and God has comforted her.

Well, Hannah and Elkanah go home and God does something.

God lets her become pregnant.

He said yes to her prayer.

He gives her a son.

Imagine how excited she must be.

She knows that God's loved her and looked after her.

She gives her son the name Samuel when she.

Which in her language, the Hebrew language, it sounds a little bit like God heard.

Hannah wants everyone to know that Samuel exists because God heard her prayer.

One of the people she wants to know that is Eli, the high priest.

The guy who doesn't even seem to know when someone's praying.

Hannah looks after Samuel until he can eat on his own.

And then she takes him to the tabernacle.

In verse 24 we're told this.

When Samuel was old enough to eat, Hannah took him to the tent of the Lord at Shiloh.

She also took a 3 year old bull, 1/2 bushel of flour and a leather bag filled with wine.

They killed the bull for the sacrifice.

Then Hannah brought Samuel to Eli.

She said to Eli, as surely as you live, my master, I.

I am the same woman who stood near you praying to the Lord.

I prayed for this child.

The Lord answered my prayer and gave him to me.

Now I give him back to the Lord.

He will belong to the Lord all his life.

And just like Hannah promised to God, she leaves Samuel at the tabernacle to worship God all the days of his life.

And then Hannah prays.

She prays about how good God is, how he doesn't do what lots of people expect him to do.

He does things much better.

He doesn't help evil people who are strong.

He helps weak people who trust him, just like he's helped her.

This is what she prays from chapter two, verse one.

She says, the Lord has filled my heart with joy.

I feel very strong in the Lord.

I can laugh at my enemies.

I'm glad because you have helped me.

There is no one holy like the Lord.

There is no God, but you.

There is no rock like our God.

Don't continue bragging.

Don't speak proud words.

The Lord is a God who knows everything.

He judges what people do.

The bows of warriors break, but weak people become strong.

Those who once had plenty of food now must work for food.

But people who were once hungry now grow fat on food.

The woman who was unable to have children now has seven.

But the woman who had many sons now is sad.

The Lord causes people to die and he causes them to live.

He brings people down to where the dead are and he raises them to life again.

The Lord makes people poor and he makes people rich.

He makes people humble and he makes people great.

The Lord raises the poor up from the dust and he picks needy people up from the ashes.

He lets the poor sit with princes.

He lets them sit on a throne of honour.

The foundations of the earth belong to the Lord.

The Lord set the world upon them.

He protects his holy people.

But those who do evil will be silenced in darkness.

Their power will not help them.

The Lord destroys his enemies.

He will thunder in heaven against them.

The Lord will judge all the earth.

He will give power to his king.

He will make his appointed king strong.

There are times where you might feel like God doesn't care or God isn't listening, or God doesn't notice you.

There'll be times when you feel like powerful people and important people.

They get away with doing bad things.

And even though you're trying to trust and serve God, things seem to be going really badly for you.

When you feel like that, remember how God looked after Hannah?

Her husband, who should have been kind to her, was a fool who spoke in hurtful ways to her.

The high priest who was there to help her know God thought she was being really evil when all she was doing was actually praying.

She could have become really angry with God.

But she understood what Eli and Elkanah didn't.

She understood that God is always good.

She can always take her troubles to him.

And that knowing God and having God know you is the best thing in all the world.

Back in Israel, it seems like lots of people don't know their God.

They don't know how good he is and how great his plans are.

And yet God's just made this baby be born.

A baby to a mother who couldn't have children.

Every time that happens in the Bible, it means God's about to do something amazing.

I wonder what he'll do with Samuel.

Well, that's a story for next time.

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Bye for now.