An outstanding example of the proverb that “prayer is work, but prayer works” is found in the life of Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel. It is interesting to note that the record of Hannah’s prayer of intercession begins with the utterance that an adversary had provoked her. Why is it that many of us have to face some great test or crisis in life before we really pray? Is this the way that the Lord has to bring us to see our inadequacy and insufficiency before we cast ourselves upon Him?
The pressure on Hannah was such that she wept and refused to eat because of the heaviness of her heart. Does God have to permit circumstances like that to come into our lives before He can get us to earnestly intercede? Hannah went to the temple, the place of prayer, and there poured out her soul in agony before the Lord. It was there, in bitterness of soul, that the sacred writer says she wept and prayed and made a vow to God, that if He would grant her petition for a man-child she would give him back to God. This prayer that burst from the inner resources of her being was labor that cannot be defined in words.
Her very persistence in intercession drew the attention of Eli the priest, who, when he saw this woman in agony of spirit with only her lips moving, rebuked her for her drunkenness. Hannah’s condition was not the result of an intoxicant, but of a consuming passion for a son. She desired a son to such a degree that she cared little or nothing about what others thought or said. Have you ever had such a longing for God to give you spiritual sons and daughters that what others said about your dedication in prayer made little impression?
Everything the Lord Jesus did was easy except prayer. In His ministry, He would speak a word and the sick were healed, the hungry were fed, or the dead were raised to life again; but one thing was work, even sweat, tears, and agony, that was His praying.
We might say that Eli, the man of God, should have been able to discern or sense Hannah’s spiritual need. But how alert are we to those in our own homes and among our acquaintances who are in need of a spiritual ministry? We are so taken up with the activities of this life that we are not in a place to discern the hunger of human hearts whom God brings across our paths.
Did Hannah give up in discouragement following the rebuke of the priest? No, of course not. Otherwise she would never have realized that prayer works.