And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord.
The success of Hannah’s prayer, and the reasons for it
1.Both Jacob’s prayer and Hannah’s prayer are very short. Hannah’s consists of a single verse. It is quite clear that the much speaking has nothing to do with being heard.
2. Both Hannah’s prayer and Jacob’s were offered when the offerer was in trouble. Jacob was flying from the face of Esau. Now observe the wonderful graciousness and tenderness of God, that He makes a special promise to prayer offered up in distress, whether of mind, body, or estate. “Call upon me,” says He, “in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.” Hannah mixed tears with her prayers, for she “prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore.” Christ mixed tears with His prayers in the garden, “Who in the days of His flesh offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death.”
3. Again, Hannah’s prayer was secret. It was not spoken in articulate language. “Now, Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.”
4. Hannah fully looked for and expected a result from her prayer. I gather this from the fact of her making a vow. When you are vexed, anxious, thwarted, troubled about anything, try to tell the story in the simplest words to God, asking deliverance from the trouble, if it be His good pleasure to grant it; if not, asking patience under it, and to be kept from going wrong, and acting in any way contrary to His will. Seek to be perfectly open, and to tell everything that is upon your mind,--your temptations, the difficulties you find in keeping your temper and conduct right, and what your special wishes are under the circumstances. Our Heavenly Father, our Divine Friend, is pleased and honoured by the confidence we repose in Him. He would have our prayer to be not only an act of homage, but an act of confidence; not only an abasemeant of the heart before His majesty, but a pouring forth of the heart before His fatherly goodness. (Dean Goulburn.)
Prayer at the point of agony
Understand what prayer is; prayer is the utterance of agony. There is a flippant way of praying, which means nothing, which God never hears. We cannot always pray at the point of agony. There are indeed some whole days upon which I cannot pray at all. I can say my prayers, I can put myself into a certain reverent attitude; but all power of prayer has gone away from me; and then upon other days I could pray from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, and have conscious influence with God. Hast thou ever an hour in thy poor, blank, barren life, when thou seemest to have influence in heaven? Employ every golden moment of that hour, and in the strength of God’s answer thou shalt go many days. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
God sought in trouble
You know, when you have been walking out with your father or mother, if you come to a pretty meadow, you can leave their side, run about, pick flowers, and hardly care whether your father and mother are near you or not. But if you should run a thorn into your finger, or hurt yourself in any way, how eagerly would you run to tell them all your trouble, and to seek their help! Now God has just such children: when all is smooth and easy around them, they care not much for their Father’s company; but let pain or trouble come, they are glad to run to him, and to pour out their hearts before him. If it had not been for Hannah’s trouble, Hannah would never have known so much of prayer and praise. (Helen Plumptre.)