“…and Yahweh remembered her.” 1 Samuel 1:19
I have been more forgetful lately. I might blame it on the worst cold I’ve ever had which kept me down for three weeks. Or maybe the fact that it followed on the heels of one of the worst flu bugs I’ve ever had. Or it could be that this has been just an insanely busy time in life and ministry. But no matter the reasons, I have been struggling with forgetfulness more often than usual—and it’s more than a little frustrating. It’s part of the human condition, is it not? And it’s ironic because we have all of these wonderful means of reminding ourselves. We have phones that buzz and chirp, computer calendars with pop-ups, not to mention phone call and email reminders. But still things slip through the cracks. If you’re like me, you also deploy old school methods in tandem with our new-fangled means. I occasionally put sticky notes on my smart phone screen since it is too easy to ignore the buzzes and chirps. And though I keep lists on my phone, I also feel compelled to keep lists on my desk, all in a desperate attempt to keep from forgetting. But as we struggle to keep our mundane things in line, here is a wonderful piece of news…our God is not forgetful. Our God is the God who remembers. We see this communicated as a theological principle in various places in God’s Word, like Psalm 98:3, “He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” We also see this theological principle in Isaiah 40 where Israel complains, “My way is hidden from Yahweh, my cause is disregarded by my God” (v. 27). Then God answers, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? Yahweh is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom” (v. 28). Our God is not forgetful…He knows what we are going through. The theological message we see throughout the Bible is our God is a God who remembers! However, I don’t think there is anything in Scripture that conveys this truth more powerfully than in the way we see God “remembering” individuals. We see it in Rachel who watched her sister and maidservants give birth, but was barren. Then we read in Genesis 30:22, “Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb.” Our God is a God who remembers, and longs to bless, His children, not just on the grand scale, but in a personal, intimate way. There is another story involving barrenness where we see that God “remembers” in an even more powerful, personal way…the story of Hannah in the first chapter of First Samuel. Here is this woman of God who, like Rachel, is struggling with barrenness while her rival, Fertile Myrtle, is not. And her rival was not shy about rubbing it in, “And because Yahweh had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat” (1 Samuel 1:6–7). We see, in Hannah, deep sorrow. And yet, this was not a sorrow that Hannah simply kept to herself. Her sadness drove her to pray, “In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to Yahweh” (v. 10). So passionate was her prayer that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk. The truth is, there are times in life when our anguish feels unbearable. There are times when we wonder if God even hears our prayers, if He even knows what we are going through. There are two ways we can respond in such times, either by faith or in disbelief. Faith doesn’t mean we put on a happy face as if everything’s ok. But it does mean that we keep turning to God, pouring our heart out to Him, trusting in His provision. This is exactly what we see in the prayer of Hannah, “O Yahweh Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to Yahweh for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head” (v. 11). The promise to never use a razor on his head signifies a vow in which her son would be consecrated to God. But what we see, in Hannah, is that in the midst of deep waters she displayed an even deeper trust in the Lord, that He would “remember” her. Of course, if you remember “the rest of the story,” you know that “Yahweh remembered her” (vs. 19) and provided her with a son. What did she name this boy? Samuel, a name that sounds a lot like “God (el) hears (shema).” Our God is a God who hears the prayers of His people, who knows what we are going through, who remembers! May we learn, more and more, to be a people who, like Hannah, are faithful to turn to Yahweh, to honestly and persistently pour out our hearts to Him, and trust Him to provide as He knows best.
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Dan GannonDan has ministered at Renton Bible Church, with his wife Debbie, since 2003. Archives
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