1 Samuel 1: Trusting God with Our Anxieties

"Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation." 1 Samuel 1:16

For the next few months, we will be taking a look at the books of 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, and Proverbs. I am super excited to start the journey of these books with you all. Today, we take a look at first Samuel 1 and what it looks like to trust God with our anxieties as Hannah did.

The biblical character Hannah, as many of you probably know, was barren. Although she desired to have children, the Lord had "closed her womb." Because of this, she was shamed and persecuted (see 1 Samuel 1:3-8). However, instead of rebelling against God because of this misfortune, she decided to trust God with her anxieties. Hannah lifted up a great prayer to the Lord, a prayer so great that Eli (a priest at the temple who saw her pray) thought that she was drunk. However, Hannah was not drunk, but rather so moved by her trust in the Lord that it caused her to look a bit odd to the casual bystander [Perhaps you have found yourself in the same circumstance before. Here is your scriptural defense.] Nevertheless, Eli the priest promises her that her request to God will come true. Hannah rejoices, goes home, "knows her husband,"* and conceives.

From this story, we get a clear picture of what it looks like to trust the Lord with our anxieties. 1 Samuel tells us that Hannah was anxious about not having children (see verse quoted above). However, instead of bottling up her fear, she released it to the Lord and requested that he change her circumstance. Hannah did what Peter commands us to in 1 Peter 5:6-7: "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."

So, do we follow the example of Hannah? Do we trust God with our anxieties, or do we deal with them in a different way? Perhaps you deal with your anxieties by bottling them up, responding to them in anger, or simply neglecting them in procrasination. Let me encourage you this morning. There are only two ways to deal with your anxieties and fears: to trust the Lord with them, or to not. I encourage you to do the former. Trust God with your anxieties, pray to him, and he will provide you with a peace that surpasses understanding, even if your circumstances don't change (Phil. 4:7).

*This is the Bible's PG terminolgy for when a mommy and a daddy "love eachother very much."