Where would you be today if you didn’t have a mother or grandmother praying for you, interceding for you before God?
One of the most powerful examples of a mother at prayer in the Bible is Hannah. Most people focus on her impassioned prayer for a son. Fewer remember what she prayed after God answered. Taken together, her prayers demonstrate five principles that every godly mother should keep in mind as they go to the Lord in prayer.
Hannah was in deep pain. Not only was she childless, but her sister-wife Peninnah, who kept on having children, cruelly mocked Hannah, reducing her to despair and tears. But instead of becoming angry at God, or even violent towards Peninnah, Hannah turned her pain into a petitionary prayer:
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” (1 Samuel 1:9-11, emphasis added).
Motherhood can be painful, filled with unique sorrows only a mother can understand. Her heart is so filled with empathy for her children that when she sees them suffer, she suffers with them. Her heart breaks for her family. But instead of becoming hopeless, like Hannah, a godly mother turns her pain into powerful prayers.
After Hannah weaned Samuel, she brought him to the priests, with whom he would spend the rest of his life. Then Hannah prayed a powerful prayer that demonstrates the depths of her faith. She began:
“My heart rejoices in the Lord;
in the Lord my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
for I delight in your deliverance.
“There is no one holy like the Lord;
there is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God (1 Samuel 2:1-2, emphasis added).
Hannah learned that God was not indifferent to human suffering. She experienced His deliverance when He gave her a son. He also vindicated her against her enemy, Peninnah, and restored her to a place of purpose and meaning in her family. A praying mother knows that God is a God who saves. His almighty saving power is greater than any enemy and any danger that can come against us. Nothing is too hard for God.
As Hannah continued, she thought about how God can bring about the complete reversal of any situation:
“Do not keep talking so proudly
or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the Lord is a God who knows,
and by him deeds are weighed.
“The bows of the warriors are broken,
but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
but she who has had many sons pines away (1 Samuel 2:3-5).
Hannah knew that while things may seem hopeless at any given moment, God has the power to completely rewrite a story. His providence makes it so that the strong warrior’s bow suddenly breaks while the weak are strengthened. The wealthy, who live a life of ease and luxury and seemingly have every want fulfilled, suddenly have to hustle for their food, while the hungry find their bellies full. And most personal of all, the woman who is mocked for being childless now finds herself surrounded by children.
A believing mother may watch her child drift spiritually, choose the wrong partner, make destructive decisions, suffer, struggle, and stumble, yet she prays with confidence that God can rewrite her child’s story.
A mother prays out of her own weakness, knowing how powerful the Lord is.
“The Lord brings death and makes alive;
he brings down to the grave and raises up.
The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
he humbles, and he exalts.
He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
and has them inherit a throne of honor.
“For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;
on them he has set the world.
He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,
but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.
“It is not by strength that one prevails;
those who oppose the Lord will be broken (1 Samuel 2:6-10a).
Mothers do not believe in a finite “god” with limited power to help. They pray to God Almighty, who has authority over life and death, poverty and wealth, failure and success. Prayer begins where human ability ends. A godly mother knows that, since the Lord created the world, nothing she can ask of God is too hard for Him to do, and nothing lies outside of His authority, including her children.
The Most High will thunder from heaven;
the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.
“He will give strength to his king
and exalt the horn of his anointed” (1 Samuel 2:10b).
While mothers pray to God to intervene in their daily situations, their hopes are not confined to this world. As Hannah prayed, her thoughts went beyond her immediate needs to a future day of reckoning—a day when God would judge the whole world and exalt His King and Anointed One. Perhaps, without fully understanding what she was saying, Hannah was praying for the time when the Messiah would come. Of course, the good news is that He did come! Jesus Christ was born and raised by a praying mother, defeated sin, death, and the devil on the cross, rose again from the dead, and now sits at God’s right hand, from whence He will come again to judge the living and the dead. Ultimately, a faithful mother’s ultimate hopes are not in the circumstances of her life, but in the Savior of the World, Jesus Christ the Lord.
A mother may feel weak, overlooked, or helpless. But that’s all the more reason to do the most powerful thing any mother can do: pray without ceasing for her children.
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Send your questions or comments to Shawn.
