Am I Not Better to You?

Our church is doing Jim Cymbala's study "When God's People Pray" and God is greatly encouraging us in the practice of prayer.

This week while doing one of the lessons in the Participant's Guide, we were asked to read I Samuel 1. As I read, God struck me with the question Elkanah ask his wife, Hannah, "Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?" (verse 8)

"Am I not better to you than ten sons?" Do you hear disappointment in his voice?

Hannah was praying for a son while going through the personal disgrace of having no children and facing the ridicule of Peninnah, the other wife of Elkanah, who had children. No doubt Elkanah loved Hannah greatly because he gave her a "double portion" (verse 5) and her continual sorrow and distress over not having a child concerned him.

As I pondered his disappointment that "he was not enough," I wondered if God feels the same way about us sometime. We are always wanting something, even reverting to whining to Him because we don't have what someone else has (a child, car, health, whatever). And God looks down to ask us, "Am I not better to you than __________?"

God is worthy of our love, adoration and worship becuase of who He is, not what He gives. Worship Him for who He is, not what He does or gives.