Trusting God Through Seasons of Waiting

 Pain, disappointment, and seasons of waiting can either push us away from God or draw us closer to Him. Pastor Chris Teien walks through the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1-2 and explores how God works through seasons of waiting, prayer, and surrender to accomplish His greater purposes. Through Hannah’s faithfulness, God raised up Samuel, a prophet who would help lead Israel during a critical moment in history. This message challenges listeners to trust God with their burdens, their families, and their future. 

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/19157276

Key Points:

1. Kingdom influence begins with surrendered prayer - Hannah brought her deep pain honestly before God and trusted Him with her future. (1 Samuel 1:9-11)
2. Kingdom faith recognizes God’s ownership - Children, resources, and opportunities are gifts from God entrusted to us for His glory. (1 Samuel 1:27-28)
3. Kingdom investment requires faithful influence - Faithfulness in parenting, mentoring, and spiritual influence can impact future generations. (1 Samuel 2:18-21)
4. Kingdom trust leaves the future in God’s hands - God worked through Hannah’s obedience and Samuel’s life to shape the future of Israel. (1 Samuel 2:20-21)

Personal Stories from Pastor Chris:

Pastor Chris shares how older pastors encouraged and mentored him before planting a church and entering full-time ministry. He reflects on the importance of learning through relationships, faithful examples, and serving alongside godly leaders.

Notable Quotes:

• “Sometimes our pain can push us away from God, but Hannah allowed her pain to drive her to God.”
• “Prayer says, ‘God, I can’t do this without You.’”
• “Sometimes our children catch our faith more than they are taught our faith.”
• “God can do great things through ordinary faithfulness.”

Actionable Takeaways:

• Bring your struggles honestly before God in prayer.
• View your children and influence as opportunities to build God’s kingdom.
• Stay faithful even when you do not immediately see results.
• Invest intentionally in the next generation through prayer, example, and encouragement.

Scripture References:

• 1 Samuel 1-2 - Hannah’s prayer, Samuel’s birth, and dedication to the Lord
• Psalm 62:8 - Pouring out our hearts before God
• Philippians 4:6 - Bringing every concern to God in prayer
• Matthew 19 - God’s design for marriage
• 2 Timothy 1:5 - The faith of Timothy’s mother and grandmother
• Acts 3:24 - Samuel’s significance in God’s redemptive plan

Keywords:

Hannah, Samuel, prayer, parenting, faithfulness, kingdom influence, Christian family, surrender, discipleship, trusting God

Challenge:

Ask God this week to show you one specific way you can faithfully influence the next generation for Christ through prayer, encouragement, or spiritual example.

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The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

I want to talk about how God works to answer prayer and provide needs and a great story of Hannah, who was Samuel's mother. So that is actually found in 1 Samuel chapter 1. I'm going to skim through it. I was really looking for a message that talked about something that related to all people, whether or not their mother's situation is good at this time, or if, yeah, whatever, how God works in us. So I don't have this on the screen. I'm just going to read chapter 1, 1 Samuel 1, 1 through 8. So kind of set the stage for what's going on here, okay? There was a certain man from, we're going to say Ramah, a Zupite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah, son of Jeroaham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu. Just skip that stuff. Okay. He had two wives. One was called Hannah, and the other Penani. Peninah had children, but Hannah had none. Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where Hapni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord. Whenever the day came for El Kanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Penina and to all her sons and daughters. But Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her and the Lord had closed her womb. Because the Lord had closed Hannah's womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her until she wept and would not eat. Her husband, Elkanah, would say to her, Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons? That's the stage there. And it's a really interesting story. And I want you to remember in the story here that what we're seeing is descriptive, not prescriptive. So we're going to see that Hannah cries out to the Lord for his son and promises, if you give me a son, I will give him back to you, and he will serve the Lord as a Nazarite all the days of his life. So basically, if God give me a son, I'm going to give him back and he can serve you at the temple. So she wasn't looking for pride. She wasn't just wanting to say, Oh, I have a son too, so don't give me such a hard time. I think that she really was in tune with the things of God, the things that God wanted, the things that needed to happen next. Because if you're looking through the Old Testament, you see it goes judges, and then when you read through the book of Judges, there's good judge, bad judge, and there's all of these difficulties. And then the book of Ruth pops in there, and then it's 1 Samuel. And Samuel is going to be the last judge. He's going to anoint Saul and David to be king. He is going to be a great prophet of God. He is going to do all of these wonderful things. And when you look at, when we look at his upbringing and the fact that his life basically was an answer to prayer and also filled the need of the Israelites in God's plan for those people at that time, that was very important. And sometimes our pain and our difficulty can make us bitter and drive us away from God. And she, Hannah, was not pulled away, pushed away, bitter with the Lord and said she cried out with her problems. She was direct with her problems. She cried out that God would fix this mess. And it was a good thing. And it's a great story. And if you think about what God has done in the past and what he could have done in other times, Hannah could have had a child, and then an angel could have shown up and said, Hey, your child, we want him for service. Kind of like some of the other people in the Old Testament. But yeah, as you think about this, as you think about what God did, I think it shows grace. I think it shows the way that God works in the lives of the brokenhearted and how God can do amazing things in people's lives. And before I jump into the first point, too, I also want to mention the idea of having two wives. I know there's some talk in political circles that maybe marriage should be opened up to more than just a man and a woman in our society, and maybe it should be multiple people in a relationship, and that's okay. I think that's a bad idea. I think the Bible makes it pretty clear, too, that a marriage relationship is supposed to be for one man and one woman for a lifetime. The Bible does talk about people with multiple wives. Back in that time, it was a cultural thing. Again, it's descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes what happened. It doesn't tell us we should live that way. But when Abraham had Sarah and eventually Hagar having children, it didn't work out well. There was conflict, there was bitterness, there was difficulty, there was hatred. It really messed the family up. Did not work good. In Genesis 29, you see that Jacob had Leah, Rachel, Bill, Hel, and Zilpah. And that did not work out either in that family. The family was marked by rivalry, jealousy, competition, manipulation, and favoritism. So Leah and Rachel competed for Jacob's affection and for children. The family dysfunction even spread to the next generation, where Joseph's brothers became jealous and sold them into slavery. David had multiple wives, it didn't work good. And Solomon would take wives as political tribute, as a way to make peace and contracts and whatever. And that did not work either. Matter of fact, 1 Kings 11 talks about Solomon's foreign wives turned his heart away from the Lord into idolatry. So it was a mess. And so we don't suggest that we don't think it's God's way. Jesus made it clear in Matthew 19 that marriage was, God's original intention for marriage was between one man and one woman joined together as one flesh. And then for church leaders, it says in 1 Timothy and Titus, church leaders were required to be the husband of one wife, reflecting the biblical standard for marriage and faithfulness. Number one, thinking about God's kingdom. Kingdom influence begins with surrendered prayer. What you think of the world and the path of the world and the purpose of life and what you are doing with your life. There are some people that think that life is all about them. So they want to have children as an extension of themselves. They want to build their legacy into their children and they want to do everything through their children. And someday when they die, they'll give all of their wealth to their children and all of this stuff. And it's all about them instead of the kingdom of God. But if we're truly saved, if we're truly in Christ, if we are truly interested in the things of God, we want to do what we can do to be kingdom builders. Maybe people think to themselves, Christian parents think to themselves, Lord, bless us with children, and we will do everything we can to train them up in the things of the Lord because we know that they are a gift from you. They are not our children, they're your children. You have blessed us to be able to invest in their lives. They are on loan from you. We will go and do all that we can to train them up in the things of the Lord. And hopefully they will choose to serve you all the days of their life. And sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn't. But your responsibility as a Christian parent was to do everything you could to teach those kids about Christ. And you knew that it wasn't just about building your legacy, it was about building the kingdom of God here and around the world. It's a tough thing when somebody has a child that they love that says, God has called me to be a missionary in a foreign world, a dangerous foreign world. We're going to pack our bags. Don't know if we'll ever be back again. We're serving Jesus, love you, mom and dad. That can be really tough. It can be exciting too, but it could be really tough. Many times, that works out really great for the parents and their kids serve the Lord faithfully, and they even get to go to another foreign country and visit them, or they come back and visit, and all of those different things. But Hannah was kingdom-minded, more than just self-focused. And she really wanted to have a child because in that culture, in that time, it was shameful for you not to have a child. And then there's the whole theological question we won't get into, but it says that God closed her womb. So it did not allow her to have a child at that time. And I don't have an explanation for that, but I do know that sometimes God withholds something good until the right perfect time, and then he allows us to have it, to enjoy it, to realize that we couldn't have gotten it on our own. It was truly a blessing from God. And when he answers our prayer, when he gives us that thing, we value it more, we treasure it more, and we know it's of God. So, but kingdom influence begins with surrendered prayer. And I hope that you have surrendered your life to Christ and that you are praying that God would use you, that God would use you to make a difference in the world. And maybe through the resources you have, the people you know, or the children that you are guiding and raising, that they too would be kingdom-minded. If we go to verse 9, if we go to verse 9, we'll see that Hannah is distressed about this whole thing with Penina and this rivalry, how she mocks Hannah that she doesn't have any children. So, verse 9 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. So this isn't polished prayer. This isn't a recited prayer. This is a broken woman crying out that God would answer her prayer. And she made a vow to the Lord. And we pray, and when we pray, Psalm 62.8 says, Trust in him at all times, you people, pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. And that's what she did, and that's what we need to do. When things are broken, we need to pray. We need to pray when we don't know what to do next, when we don't know what to say next, and we don't know how to handle the situation, that we cry out to God and we ask for help. And she is committing. She is committing that if God gives her this son, that he is going to give her back to him. So, again, this is what parenting should be about that we give these children back to the Lord. And that is a good thing to do. And sometimes it's hard to figure out what exactly you can do, especially as the children get older and make their own decisions. But, you know, mothers pray, fathers pray during difficult seasons, grandparents pray for the grandkids, believers cry out to God for prodigal children, through the troubles of children, through the wanting to know, wanting to guide children, that God would help them, surround them with good friends. Every school year I pray that the students in the school would find at least one Christian friend to help them, to stay strong in the Lord, to be encouraged. That would be a good thing. But to pray. So it doesn't mean that you have to have perfect parenting techniques. It doesn't mean that you have to have all the answers or control every circumstance, but you pray. So prayer says, God, I can't do this without you. I can't parent this child without you. I don't know how to be a grandparent without you. Philippians 4, 6. Don't be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God to pray, to pray, be kingdom-minded, be thinking about eternity more than just the temporary things that are going on right now. Because number two, number two, kingdom faith recognizes God's ownership. When we come to Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we've been bought with the price. We are therefore no longer our own. And we should glorify God with the things that we do, the things that we say, the way that we spend, the way that we use our time. Those are all important. But to know that kingdom faith recognizes God's ownership. And we want to do everything we can to be in tune with the things of God, to be able to be part of his plan, to be used in his workings, those are good things to be. I think that many people, when they volunteer to teach Sunday school, when they volunteer to do vacation Bible school, when they volunteer to take care of kids, when they don't have, hang on a second, when they don't have kids in that age group, it's because they want to further the kingdom of God. Because they know that it's important to raise up the next generation faithful to the things of Christ. And those are good things. So skip forward to verse 27. So Hannah has this son, and she says, 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 you worship the Lord there. So it happened. She gives Samuel to Eli, the priest, to the Lord. If you're in the Bible, if you're looking at the passage, you'll see that chapter 2 starts with this long prayer that Hannah has, where she actually compares her situation with Peninah being her adversary and kind of the way it is in the world, even, and how I see believers are spoken against and downtrodden and all, but how God provides. And so that is a good thing to read, a good thing to look at. We won't look at it right now, but to give him to the Lord all of his days. I don't know how many times that happened at the tabernacle, how many times that happened at that time. We don't see many times in the Bible people just dropping off their kids at church. So I am not prepared for you to drop how old is this child, by the way? So it says he was weaned. So is this child somewhere between two and five? We'll say maybe he's five, okay? So Hannah shows up and says, Hey, remember how we prayed for this child, and here he is, and so now that he's weaned, I promise God that I would give him to you. So here's this child. And then Eli, who, if you look at the second half of chapter two, has older sons who are wicked sons, who do all sorts of things that shouldn't be done serving the Lord at the tabernacle. There, you want Eli to raise your kid? Obviously, God entrusted Eli to train up Samuel. And so, in the from what I read in this time, that Eli wasn't serving by himself. He had a whole network of people working there. So I'm sure that other people came along and helped raise this child. But the big idea was that he was raised in the shadow of Eli, who was getting old, and he was going to he was being mentored. So many people in the old in the scriptures we see were being mentored, like Joshua was mentored by Moses before he took over. That's a good example. Paul had Timothy, that's another good example. Jesus had his disciples around him for three years to train them up. So many times things are caught more than they're taught. So you can't take an instruction manual and train up a future minister of God and expect them to get everything as much as you can if they serve alongside somebody and learn from their technique, from their mannerisms, from the things that they do. And when I first got into ministry, or when I was thinking about getting into ministry, I got to, I've shared this with some of you before, but uh got together with Peter West, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis for a long time. And he heard my plan that I was going to get out of Bible college and go with a group and plant a church to rural America, and he's like, don't do that until you've served under at least three different types of pastors. He didn't tell me I couldn't do it, but it did turn out that way. And I learned from these different pastors things that I wouldn't have known. And then I planted a church, and then after that I came here. But those experiences that you learn from the things that they do, they tell you things that you wouldn't know otherwise, things that are really helpful. But as you think about what's important in life, you can't dump your children off on the church and just think that God's going to take care of it all. So what I'm saying is that if you have a child or a grandchild, you can't just bring him to church and say, well, he goes to children's church and he comes to Rockwell Kids and he comes to vacation Bible school, so that should be good enough. No, it takes a lot more than that. We are just here to try to assist, try to encourage. But if you have the opportunity, you should do all that you can to train those kids up in the things of the Lord. That's why we offer the Right Now Media video service. There's like 2,000 videos on there for kids. Many of them are good instructional teachings for your kids. You can have a discussion about what was watched afterwards. Those are good things. And then you could read the Bible with them, you could teach them Bible stuff. There's just so many things that you can do. But in this particular situation, God wanted this boy to be trained up in the things of God, in the shadows of Eli, so that he would know how to serve the Lord in the coming days. So it was a it was a difficult time, but Samuel was faithful. And as you read about that in the book of 1 Samuel, you'll see all of the amazing things, even how the Lord spoke to Samuel when he was young and continued to speak to him, so that Samuel was a prophet that foretold the things of God. Sometimes he told the future, sometimes he told what God was thinking, and very powerful. And this is the child that Hannah prayed for, that she dedicated to the Lord and what God did with him. And so many times, when we're faithful to do our little part, God can do great things through our children, our grandchildren, the children we invest in in church, if we'll be faithful. We just need to keep being faithful and trust God with the results. Even if it doesn't seem at the time like it's working out today, we know that there is as long as a person is still alive, there's still time for them to turn to the Lord. And that is a good thing. So number three, kingdom investment requires faithful influence. Faithful influence. You want to be an influence in your kids' and grandkids' lives if you can. And so Hannah just didn't drop this child off and walk away and say, Okay, God, I did my part. Here's the child. Oh, it's so hurtful, I just can't bear to see him. No, she came to see him every year as she had opportunity. Verse 18. Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod. Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice. Her boy, who's been dedicated to God, is there ministering before the Lord, a little guy with a little robe doing the things that Eli is teaching him to do, preparing him for a lifetime of ministry, preparing him to be greatly used of God. And I'm sure that she would have to take great joy in that. She'd go tell her adversary, it's like, yeah, you got boys and girls, but you your boy isn't anything like my boy. My boy is literally serving the Lord, bringing the Lord glory. There's no answer for her rival for that. Pretty exciting. But she cared and she loved it. I don't know why it was every year. Maybe it was a long trip. I don't know about their traveling schedule. I know that some moms would probably be there every week. Okay, let's go watch Samuel minister before the Lord. But it's what she did. And it's what God wanted people, the Israelites, to know about the important life of Samuel through scripture and what he wants us to know today, and what we can learn from that, that is a good thing. So she gave him to the Lord. He was faithful to serve the Lord. And when we influence our kids for Christ, sometimes it happens through conversations. Sometimes they see our priorities, sometimes they see our example, sometimes they see our consistency, and sometimes through ordinary moments of faithfulness, they catch our faith and our love for Christ. So it doesn't mean we need to be perfect, but sometimes we can model repentance or forgiveness or our trust in God. Those are good things. In 2 Timothy 1 5, it says that Paul later told Timothy that. Of his sincere faith first lived in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice before it lived in him. That reminder of his faithful mother and grand grandmother. Those are good things. So, and number four, number four, kingdom trust leaves the future in God's hands. Kingdom trust leaves the future in God's hands. So here it says in chapter 2, verse 20, Eli would bless El Kanah and his wife, saying, May the Lord give you children by this woman to take the place of the one she prayed for and gave to the Lord. Then they would go home. And the Lord was gracious to Hannah. She gave birth to three sons and two daughters. And meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord. So Hannah not only was faithful in the one thing that was so important, but God blessed her even more. Actually, in the book of Job, too, you see that Job goes through this really hard thing and he loses his children, but God blesses him with another round of children. I don't know if that necessarily takes any grief away. I mean, to replace one group of children with another isn't enough. But to know that God cares and God knows that in the difficulty of life and the mystery of life and the hardships and the joys of life on this journey, that uh there's different things that come into our life at different times, and we need to be faithful in all of it. But Samuel, he was a prophet, he was a judge, he was a priestly leader and a man guide. God used to guide an entire nation during a critical transition in Israel's history. In Acts 3, he's talked about. He's talked about how the future prophecies of God and all of these things. Let me jump into verse 24, Acts 3, verse 24. Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today. You are the children of those prophets, and you are included in the covenant God promised to your ancestors. So in this great sermon, Samuel is called out as being significant. He helped lead Israel spiritually after the dark and chaotic period of the judges. He did all of these things. So, but before we run out of time, I want to talk about one other thing. So if you look in 1 Samuel chapter 2, verse 12, I don't have the verses on the screen or anything, and I'm not going to read all the verses. But Eli's sons, Hapni and Phineas, were doing all sorts of things wrong. And Eli knew about it. The scripture makes it clear that Eli knew about it, but Eli chose to honor his sons more than God. Being that he was the leader, the lead priests at the temple, and his sons were serving as priests, and they were literally stealing offerings. They were taking food that wasn't theirs. They were being promiscuous with other women that were showing up at the temple. That Eli didn't do anything about it. He did talk to them about it, it appears, but he didn't do anything to get in their way and stop it. And he should have stopped that. And there was going to be judgment. So there was going to be judgment. If you continue to read on, God expresses his displeasure at that and announces that they, those two sons, are going to die at the same time. And Eli too died. But if you do have prodigal children, if you do have children that are off the beaten path, there has to be some kind of way that you can show them that you care, but that the Lord is important to you, and the things of the Lord are important to you, and that you want the best for them and you pray the best for them. And then maybe you call out the things that they're doing that you find displeasure in or that are wrong, and maybe try to show them the consequences and try to find that balance that I'm here for you, but I don't condone what you're doing. And it's a long struggle. But many people do. Many people do, and sometimes it turns around in ways that you don't expect. So in my last moment here, just want to maybe point out Franklin Graham, okay? So he runs Samaritan's Purse. You see him on the news, on the TV. He Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes and things like that. Billy Graham's son, all right? You'd think that he would have it all together. Be a great, godly child that would cause no trouble. But in his own testimony, he talks about how he was a rebellious teenager and young adult, that he was a heavy drinker, he lived recklessly, he resisted authority, he rebelled against the spiritual direction he had been raised with. And at times people question whether he would ever seriously follow Christ, but God worked in his heart. Franklin Graham eventually surrendered fully to Jesus Christ and today leads those ministries. And never underestimate the power of prayer, faithful love, and the grace of God. So we may not see what God is doing in the lives of these children. I was telling my wife the other day, it's like, why does God give children free will before they turn 26? I mean, if they just would make the right choices, and then when they're 26, then maybe they can start to make their own choices. But many times kids experiment, they make wrong choices, they do things that disappoint us. So we need to keep praying, keep guiding, keep standing, keep caring and not giving up as much as we can. So, yeah. Next week is graduation Sunday, but we're also gonna talk about trusting God with what comes next. And we're gonna look at the life of Jacob when he didn't know what was going on with his life or what he was gonna do next. I think it will be a good Sunday, but I'm gonna pray. Lord, it's easy to talk about having patience and trying to redirect children, adult children that have strayed away from the faith or gone in a different direction. But Lord, we pray that you would continue to work on their lives, that you would surround them with godly influence, that your Holy Spirit would convict them. Lord, I pray that something that was said in this message of just being kingdom-minded and putting your plan, your purpose, your priorities before our own and wanting to be part of it, wanting to be part of the experience, part of the labor, part of the activity. To be not spectators, but to be actually in the game. Lord help us to be those people. Help us to be so on fire for you that it's contagious, that people around us will see our great zeal and love for you and want some of that too. So we just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.