How many times have we cried out to God for help in our lifetime? How many times did God answer us?

One way to answer those questions is to look in God’s word. We read of people desperately praying to God and God blessing them in various ways. Jonah is a good example. Things can’t get any worse than living and then dying in the stomach of a monstrous fish. In his hysteria Jonah 2:2 cries out, “I called out of my distress to the Lord and He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. Or, how about Hannah in I Samuel?! She cries out to the Lord to the degree that the priest Eli thinks she is drunk! Hannah responds, “…I am a woman oppressed in spirit; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not consider your maidservant as a worthless woman, for I have spoken until now out of my great concern and provocation.” Then Eli answered and said, “Go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of Him” (I Samuel 1:12-18).

Another way to answer that question is to look at our own lives over the years. Look at how God has taken care of us and blessed us with good things. Look at how God has blessed us by choosing to strengthen us in character and faith rather than remove our problem as He uses the bad things to build us up for eternity. (See II Corinthians 12:7-10). Look at how God has answered our prayers by using us in our struggles to bless someone else physically, emotionally, and especially spiritually. (Look at the cross to understand how suffering can bless others.)

So the answers to the questions above is that we cry out to God many times during the course of our lives and we know as we walk by faith that God has answered us each and every time. Sometimes He answers “yes” – sometimes He answers “No” – sometimes He says “Wait – I have something better planned”.

Nobody gets to live a pain-free life. We may struggle financially, physically or emotionally. We might cry out for an aching child or an aging parent. Nobody goes through life pain-free. A beautiful prayer is crying out to God and thanking Him for loving us and working so wisely in our lives to get us from here to heaven.

Read I Samuel 1:9-2:10 and listen to Need You Now by Plumb.

1 Samuel 1:9-2:10

Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s house. In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”

“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”

Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.

Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.”

When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always.”

“Do what seems best to you,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the Lord make good his word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.

Then Hannah prayed and said: