The Meaning Of Life

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/1_samuel/2.htm

I try to pray throughout the day. Even if it isn’t a kneeling down, head bowed, hands clasped prayer, anytime I recognize one of God’s blessing, I just take a second to say, “Thank you.”, and “I love you.” I also have much longer and more formal prayers, because I have so much to be thankful for. And I can safely assume that the blessings from God that I recognize, are likely about 1% of the total blessings He actually bestows on me.

I have no idea how others pray…in fact, it’s really none of my business. However, I do see printed prayers on social media, and there is always someone wanting you to share it and post it on your own feed. And I know many of those prayers always ask for financial blessings, and that is always a turn off for me. The first reason we should pray is to thank God for what he does for us. The first things we should ask for are things like strength, compassion, understanding, patience, empathy, etc. But, I’m not sure praying for money is the right thing to do. I understand some have financial problems, and it it certainly okay, in my opinion, to pray that God takes care of you, but to pray for a windfall to buy a new car, or to win the lottery so you can build a new house…to each his own, it’s just not my cup of tea. There are far more important things in this world we need to be praying for other than wealth and riches.

The reason I bring this up is because in this chapter of 1 Samuel, Hannah prays to God, and about the first half, if not more, is a prayer worshiping God and all of the wonderful things he does. To me, that is a fine prayer!

But then in Verse 6, she starts talking about things that, in my opinion, were likely highly misperceived in those days. We have the luxury to have known Jesus. We’ve read about the actions of Jesus, His love, His mercy, His healing, His blessing. Jesus dealt with His enemies with scripture and teaching through parables; He didn’t kill them. Jesus met Satan in the wilderness, resisted his temptation, had the perfect opportunity to kill him right then and there. But that is not the character of Jesus, and it isn’t the character of God either.

“If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.”

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I still contend that Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, perished because God showed Himself to them and they were not righteous enough to withstand the brightness of His Glory. Remember, Moses face was glowing just being in God’s presence, without even looking at Him face to face. And since scripture says that the bodies of Nadab and Abihu were carried out of the camp “by their tunics”, we know they were not consumed by fire, that God didn’t send fire on them to “kill” them; He simply showed Himself to them and they perished from the brightness. I often think that God’s Glory is brighter than the sun.

But for those who witnessed the death of Nadab and Abihu, they probably perceived “fire” coming down from Heaven and “consuming” Nadab and Abihu. And there were lots of other things they witnessed that they misperceived the true character of God.

One of the great and one of my favorite actors is Denzel Washington. He has been the star of three movies titled “The Equalizer”; one original and two sequels. In these movies, he avenges the actions of those who are wicked and evil, his past experience as an unknown but highly classified soldier who is even a higher level than a Ranger or a Seal, gives him special skills that allows him to be victorious over the bad guys. And one line he repeats throughout the movie is, “I gave them the chance to do the right thing”, meaning he didn’t kill indiscriminately, he gave the bad guys a chance to make things right.

Now, I’m not suggesting God kills, but as an example, I believe He gave people a chance to repent of their sins and climb aboard the ark with Noah to save themselves from the flood, but instead they turned their back on God and mocked Noah. And as a result, they perished. God sent a flood, and the people had a chance to escape it, they simply chose not to.

I could go on talking about snippets of Hannah’s prayer, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll stop.

The rest of this chapter talks about how Samuel ministered, even as a child, and how Eli’s two son, who served as priests were corrupt, causing a curse to fall on their families.

There are lessons in this chapter of how to live a prayerful life, and how not to be corrupt when you are called upon by God to serve Him.

God bless everyone.