The Importance of Praying Mothers

Often prayer is learned in the dark times, in the times of trouble, when our hearts yearn for something which urges us to fall on our knees in prayer.  So it was with Hannah, who was burdened with barrenness, which caused her intense grief.  Every year Hannah and her husband went to worship the Lord at Shiloh.  Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord, nothing seemed to ease her pain.  Then, one day she made a vow to the Lord; she promised that if God would grant her request by giving her a son she would give him back to God all the days of his life.  Then Hannah continued to pray, her lips moved but no voice was heard, her heart may have been filled with so much grief that she could not speak, in fact, Eli thought she was drunk.  

Hannah was persistent in pouring out her heart to the Lord.  In explaining this to Eli, he blessed her by wishing that God would grant her request.  It is then we see a change in her disposition, she went and ate and her face was no longer downcast.  Hannah received a Word of the Lord from Eli and it changed something inside her.  Her grieving was over.  In the course of time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son, she named him Samuel, who came into the world and was given an existence as a direct result of prayer! It was no wonder that he became a great man of prayer for it was modeled to him by his mother!   

Samuel was the miracle child given to Hannah and he grew up to be a great prophet who served the Lord faithfully.  Samuel heard the Lord’s voice at a young age. Would a worldly home, with worldly surroundings, separated from the church, with a worldly mother have produced a praying man such as Samuel? Would such influences in early life have produced such a praying man?  Samuel knew God in boyhood and as a result he knew God in manhood.  He recognized God in childhood, obeyed and prayed.  The result was that he recognized God in adulthood, obeyed and prayed.  If more children were born of praying mothers, brought up in direct contact with a praying church, and reared under praying environments, more children would hear the voice of God’s spirit speaking to them, and would more quickly respond to the voice of God in their lives.   

If we want praying people in our churches, we must have praying mothers to give them birth, praying homes to color their lives, and praying surroundings to impress their minds and to lay the foundations for praying lives.  Praying Samuel's come from praying Hannah’s.  Praying priest’s come from praying churches.  Praying leaders come from praying homes.  God raised up in Samuel a leader who could pray, who knew the worth and the place of prayer and a leader who had the ear of God.  As women, let’s commit to growing in our personal prayer lives so that we can see our children grow up to be Samuel’s!

You can read this great Bible story in 1 Samuel 1.  

Reference:

The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer.