Pouring Out The Soul Before God

"Pouring Out The Soul Before God" – 1 Samuel 1:15 "No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD." The study begins from Hannah's answer to Eli the priest in order to teach one thing: the soul is poured out before God, not before another mortal. It follows the thread through Psalm 62:8 —pour out your heart before him—, through 1 Samuel 1:18, where prayer produces rest before the answer arrives, and through the three promises that hold up the one who carries a burden: Psalm 55:22 ("he shall sustain thee"), Isaiah 46:4 ("even to your old age I am he") and 1 Peter 5:7 ("casting all your care upon him").

I. The soul is poured out before God

A. "I have a friend I always talk to, I tell him everything." But what must be learned is to pour out the soul before God, not before another mortal.

B. As mortals, we all have to pour out our soul. All of us.

C. There are good days and ordinary days, but a whole hard life. If you laughed much one day you even say "let me be careful, I do not know what tomorrow brings" — there is a spark of superstition in it.

D. But we know the sun will rise again and that life goes on.

II. Hannah, a woman of a sorrowful spirit

A. Hannah wanted a child and could not have one. It is a violent thing not to have children, and to have everyone ask when you will.

B. And whoever has that difficulty does not dare say why. The pastor speaks from her own experience: it took her nearly six years, and it was a subject she would not touch because it hurt her.

C. "From the day I was converted my one concern was to serve the Lord with all my heart. They have not been good days, though they may look it: they have been many days of struggle."

D. Hannah wept much and was deeply moved before the altar. And that is strange, for no woman could go to an altar: those petitions belonged to the men.

E. She had a need no one could supply, and she was deeply afflicted.

III. Not invading another's soul

A. When one touches on such things with people it must be done with utmost care: not because you are a father, a mother or a brother. Only the person decides whether to speak.

B. To go and touch what we should not touch is to invade someone's soul.

C. And almost always those who invade that way do not allow themselves to be invaded.

D. Today even the law protects it: one cannot go to a hospital and ask what a person has, because it is private. Once one visited and offered prayer; no longer.

E. There is no trouble in that: what belongs to us to do, God will open the door for — the door we ought to open, because we love.

F. And that means you carry pain, for love is pain. That is why none of this is done as a festivity: it is done out of pain.

IV. Hannah's prayer and Eli's mistake

A. She went to the temple and prayed with such intensity that only her lips moved and her voice was not heard.

B. If God gave her the child, she would give him back; that is why her son was raised in the temple and became the great prophet of those times. Afterward she had more children.

C. Out of all she wept, with tears and pain, she told God "he is yours," and handed him to the priest. That is how she came to make a covenant with God: she knew Him, and God took the covenant.

D. Whoever knows the Lord is founded on miracles. Many miracles.

E. Eli, seeing her, wrongly thought she was drunk: he spoke wrongly of a woman who was seeking and who stood in great fear of God.

F. So Hannah explained: "I am not drunk; I have poured out my soul before the LORD."

G. If one weeps in prayer and has a reason, one is crying out and groaning before God, and feels that the conversation is between oneself and God.

H. "If someone asks what is wrong, that they heard you weeping… I will never ask anyone that. Never." Because no mortal can relieve the cry that can only be given to God.

I. The soul can be cast down, and the soul knows the reason. There one has entered a spiritual ground: the war, the struggle, the shedding of the flesh and the entering into that intimate life with the sovereign God.

V. What it is to pour out the soul

A. When we go to prayer we must make ourselves understand that we want to pour out the soul before God.

B. "It cannot be, it should not be, it is not deserved" to pour out the soul before another mortal, for no one will understand why you are pouring it out.

C. Body, soul and spirit: the soul is what is cast down. And since your soul is in despair, you present it to God so that God may hear you.

D. Hannah was not simply saying a prayer: she would have said simple prayers before. Going to the temple was a more violent act of faith.

E. It was a kind of daring: something not customary, not proper. But that day she said "I am going to do it."

F. The soul is very vulnerable: glad today, sad tomorrow. That is why one must work with one's soul and carry it to God.

G. "I have poured out my soul": if we pour out ours, we come away gaining. If it is a no, it is a no; if it is a yes, it is a yes. But it must be poured out.

H. Like a bucket of water tipping over: it spilled, and the water reached that far. So it is when one enters true communion with God.

I. The matter of religion is communion with God, life with God, seeking with God. It is not with man: it is with God. "Why do you come to church? Because it is with God."

J. The expression speaks of emptying before God everything one carries within, with sincerity.

K. It is not to people that the tale of one's tribulations, problems and conflicts is told: it is to God.

L. And once you pour it out, you are emptied; and since you poured it out, it is no longer yours: it belongs to God, for Him to work it for your good.

M. What does one carry within? Pain, worry, desires, tears, questions and hope.

N. Sometimes even the nerves take hold: the stomach closes, one gets confused during the day and asks "what is wrong with me today?" — because one carries too much inside.

O. Hannah came loaded, but she did not hide her pain: she turned it into a prayer. "There is nothing better than going to God."

VI. Psalm 62:8 — "pour out your heart before him"

A. "Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us."

B. You think "God knows it anyway." No: God wants you to pour out your heart, to bring it out, to tell Him in prayer.

C. And what does God do? It is gathered up and carried to the third heaven and presented to God. And there is the answer.

VII. 1 Samuel 1:18 — rest comes before the answer

A. "So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad."

B. Samuel had not yet been born: the answer had not yet come, but the prayer had already produced rest in her heart.

C. Her heart was already satisfied, because she had poured out her soul before God.

D. The devil keeps you occupied so you will not pray: many worries, many doubts, time too full, much work, much to produce.

E. "Miserably we lose our life of miracles because of the cares of the earth." And in the absence of prayer, heaven does not know you.

F. Every prayer is carried to the Father in the name of Jesus, who is at His right hand. That is why we always say "in the name of Jesus," and why prayer must be made properly.

G. We do not come to church to enjoy ourselves when we feel like it: the point is to reach God, for there is much to fight and many attacks. The devil looks for how to attack the one who does not pray.

H. That is why there are no miracles, when there ought to be more and we ought to be people of miracles.

I. Hannah went in with anguish, poured out her heart and came out in peace. The circumstances were the same —she was not yet with child—, but she was no longer the same.

J. Miracles are asked for in prayer, in sanctification, in knowing the word. "How many miracles do you ask God for: one, or none?"

K. And then came the hardest part: giving him up. She kept him until he was weaned and then brought him to the priest, her heart tearing. But she knew the One she had begged.

VIII. Psalm 55:22 — "cast thy burden upon the LORD"

A. "Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved."

B. There are days when they ask how you are and you do not even know where you are, with a thousand things in your mind.

C. If you want to quarrel with everyone and blame everyone… the fact is that each one comes with burdens in life. It is not that people are against you.

D. David does not say we will have no burden: he says what to do when the burdens come — set them upon God.

E. "I have never been able to take your burdens away. Because no one has ever come to me who could take mine away either."

F. The word "burden" covers whatever weighs on the heart: worries, fears, problems, responsibilities, situations we cannot resolve and pains we carry within.

G. "I could not sleep," "I woke up with a thousand burdens." One cannot live so: the next day one rises badly, anxiety attacks, and nothing is mended.

H. "It is not that I lie down without worries; I do. But I fall and I rise knowing that it falls to me to pray and to do battle that day."

I. Note that it does not say He will take the burden away at once: first it promises something marvelous — "he shall sustain thee."

J. God will not take the situations away, but He will hold us up, give us strength and keep us standing while we pass through them.

K. When one goes to sleep, the mind runs backward and forward; and that worry stays there, slow, to take away sleep — and, greater still, to take away peace.

L. He will give you strength, He will feed you, and He will not let you collapse under the weight of the burden.

M. Perhaps the situation will not vanish at once, but God promises you will not have to hold yourself up by your own strength alone — which is exactly what cannot be done.

N. It is as if God said: "give me your burden; I will take care of holding you up."

O. And she says it out of her own history: there were years of fears and circumstances, when what mattered was protecting her children. "My status is not the car: it is that heaven opens to hear me."

IX. Isaiah 46:4 — "even to your old age I am he"

A. "And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you."

B. God gives what is needed to keep crossing through, without abandoning us. When one is walking one does not see what is good and what is bad: one is crossing through.

C. The burden may be great, but greater is He who sustains you.

D. God assures His people that His care has no expiration date.

E. The same God who was with you at the beginning will be with you when the years pass. He does not change. And how should we act? In an act of faith.

F. "In old age one is fuller; in old age there are things that no longer scandalize me." In youth come the desperation, the nerves and the panic attacks.

G. "Will carry" has here the sense of holding up, bearing, carrying. That is what God has done with us; when our strength fails, His remains.

H. "I am your Creator": we are not strangers to Him, we are the work of His hands.

I. "I will carry": there are moments when we walk and others when God must carry us, and He bears us in His right hand.

J. That does not mean we are defeated nor cowards: the struggle presses, and sometimes one must step back and hide for a time. And there is nothing better than going in the arms of the Lord.

K. He does not only carry you: He protects and preserves you. "The God who made me is the God who will carry me, from youth to gray hairs."

L. Our strength changes, circumstances change, the body changes —not a bone is left that does not ache—, but the God who sustains us does not change.

X. 1 Peter 5:7 — "casting all your care upon him"

A. "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you."

B. If they are still a burden, it is because you have not yet been able to cast them upon Him.

C. "Casting" does not say "endure" or "resist": the idea is to set upon another what you are carrying.

D. "God, I cannot, help me; open doors; deliver me, for the day is heavy."

E. But it is not casting just anything upon God: the floor still has to be swept. What is cast on Him is all that is genuinely hard, so that the LORD may come out for you and bring what you need.

F. And some things are not burdens at all: if someone takes the parking space that is yours, you go and speak with the person, and the problem is solved.

G. Casting the burdens is not an act of abuse: it is the act of one who is fighting and facing things, when one takes the maturity to say "we are adults now, we cannot keep acting like children."

H. "All" is not only the great worries: it is everything that unsettles the mind, steals the calm or weighs on the heart.

I. Peter does not say to ignore our problems, but to move them from our shoulders to God.

J. If you have a child who is rebellious and speaks to you as though you were nothing, that is a burden: cast it on God and ask Him for wisdom. And what will God give? Wisdom, authority, strength, mastery.

K. "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep," say the Scriptures. Let us learn the Scriptures.

L. "For he careth for you": that is the reason we can hand Him the burden. We matter to God; He is not indifferent to what we are living.

M. God does not only want you to tell Him what is happening: He wants you to hand it over. And for that one must have the habit of prayer, for the prayer of the righteous availeth much.

N. We can pray about something and go on carrying it; but the moment comes to say: "Lord, this is no longer in my hands; I put it in yours."

O. And to open the door to the Lord, we hand Him our whole life: the bad day and the good day.

P. We have no right to throw a fit in life: we have the duty to bend our back and to know that life is one.

Q. Old age does not disable: there are the maturity, the wisdom, the knowledge and the experience of how to carry things — "so well that we can outdo the young."