[Hannah], greatly distressed, prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly. She made a vow and said, “O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head.”

1 Samuel 1:10-11

This past weekend I got to spend some time with my family. I always enjoy the peaceful farm, the animals, and time with my parents and brother, but this weekend I especially enjoyed joining my parents’ small group class.

My daddy taught about Jacob and his dream about the ladder reaching Heaven with angels ascending and descending on it. It came at a time when Jacob was at his most uncomfortable, sleeping in the wilderness with a rock for a pillow, but it was that difficult time that God chose to reveal Himself to Jacob.

To end the lesson, the floor was opened up to anyone else who had a similar story where God chose to provide or reveal Himself in a dark time. Story after story was shared and I noticed a bit of a pattern. Every person had been faithfully praying about whatever was troubling them, but at some point, they’d hit rock bottom, and when they did, something changed—the way they were praying for those things.

One woman summed it up perfectly by saying, “What I was praying had to change.” Each one of the stories mentioned how they went from just asking God to provide the thing or person they longed for to including God and His will in the prayer, and when they did, it opened up the door for God to move.

I think we see the same thing happening with Hannah in 1 Samuel. We don’t get to listen in on any of the other prayers she prayed for God to give her a child, but it’s a pretty safe bet that there were a lot of them. Many, I’m sure, were accompanied by tears. 

We can’t know what she prayed previously, but given how deeply she longed for a child, it seems unlikely she had been making a lot of offers to God to give up that child like she does in 1 Samuel 1.

When she chooses to go pray at the temple, she’s at her lowest. She won’t eat. She is so grief-stricken the priest thinks she’s drunk. And when she lands in that lowest place, she vows to give her son up if God will bless her with the child she longs for. 

The result is a man of God who leads the people until the time of the kings and then proceeds to anoint the first two. He was well-known and God used him in mighty ways, and it all came about because his mother chose to humble herself and surrender control of her desires to God.

Here’s what I mean. I think most of the things we desire greatly enough to pray over for an extended period of time are probably not contrary to God’s will for our lives. I’m sure if we look hard enough we’ll find some that are, but I think most—like having a family, being financially stable, having good health, or the healing of a loved one—are good things. The problem in these cases doesn’t necessarily come from the what, but from the how. 

It was a good thing for Hannah to desire to have children with her husband, but her plan most likely didn’t originally include giving that child up as soon as he was weaned. That wasn’t her plan about how being a mother would look. 

There have been many times in my own life that I have spent way more time than I should have daydream-praying about the things I hoped God would do in my life. I talked to Him about how I wanted to meet my husband while waiting in line at the grocery store, so I could have my ideal meet cute story. I’ve talked to Him about how I wanted my career to go, and my plans for having children. While none of those things are bad, rarely do I hand Him my desires and invite Him to write the story the way He wants to

I think for many of us God is waiting for us to surrender our plan about how He should grant our request. He’s waiting for us to leave the how (and probably the when too) up to Him. 

For Hannah and many of the people who shared their stories this weekend in that small group meeting, when they surrendered the how, they ended up finding their requests being granted in unique ways that were personal and specific to the surrendering prayers they prayed. Listening to the stories felt like they had let me read a personalized note from God reminding them they were seen and loved.

If there is something you are burdened about today, I hope you’ll join me in taking our desires to the Father, but in a way that opens the door for Him to be the magnificently powerful and loving God He is. He is a good Father who loves giving His children good gifts. We just have to get our own plans out of the way. 🙂