“As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard.”
Sometimes I like to get down to the bare facts of things. Have you ever wondered when God hears you? I mean praying is something that the Bible says we ought to do in order to strengthen our relationship to the Lord. The New Testament has many stories of Jesus praying out loud and the religious leaders at that time doing the same thing. Paul and all the disciples also prayed for people. So what does God hear and does He hear our prayers at all?
God does hear our prayers but you may be asking what kind of prayer does He hear. Well, here we see Hannah pouring her heart out to the Lord about not having a child while her husbands other wife is popping them out like pancakes at a prayer breakfast. The other wife is also rubbing it in and drives Hannah to tears all the time by mocking her about her closed womb. Verses 5-6 of chapter one tell us that God has shut her womb for a reason.
Hannah pours her heart our to the Lord in this chapter and her prayers are recorded for us. We don’t see what all she said but we see how she said it. She was praying in her heart while words were not coming out. Eli, the priest, was so confused by this he thought she was drunk. Hannah tells Eli that she is not drunk, just a deeply troubled women. I think most of us can identify with Hannah here. I will admit, sometimes I don’t want to pray out loud because the prayer is so deep and troubling you don’t want anyone to hear it. In those times I have to be assured that my God will hear me. The Bible tells us that she was praying from her heart. Hannah knew something that day that Eli did not understand. God hears our hearts when we cry out to Him. In Eli’s world, it was all about the show, the out loud prayer. The “I’ve got to make it sound good” kind of prayer. Your prayer does not have to sound like a poet wrote it, but is does have to be from the heart. A conversation with God that starts out like Hannah’s prayer did, from the heart.
God heard Hannah’s genuine prayer from her heart. If the Bible says that out of the heart the mouth speaks then God knows our hearts and when we pray in our heart, like Hannah did, He hears us. Sometimes all you might be able to muster is a silent prayer but that is all God needs because He hears you. So at work, at school, on your bike, in your car, while cooking, you can be praying in your heart to God. When Paul said we should be in prayer continually this is what he meant. Today, say hello to God out loud or in your heart because the He hears you.
Let It Go 
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