Pouring our Hearts Out in Prayer: What Does this really look like?

“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.”

1 Samuel 1:15

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Unsettled. Restless. Yearning. 

This was my heart before the Lord. As I laid my Bible down on the hard-wooden pew next to me, my heart was full of questions and yearnings. I began to pray, yet I wondered if the pain within my heart could truly make its way into the words spoken.

My heart yearned for more. I longed to feel the kind of comfort only He could bring.

Have you ever had a desire you believe was given to you by the Lord, yet it was unfilled in your life, causing a seemingly painful ache within your heart?

That is how I felt that day.

Throughout my life the Lord had brought me from a place of fear, hurt, and a desire for self-protection into a place of healing and restoration. I longed for a type of companionship I have never known before and to pour out love in my heart in a new way.

It seems a beautiful thing when, in abiding with the Lord, there is comes a desire which seems to only grow over time. One day, I desired to be a wife and a mom.

Yet, this desire produced a longing within my heart, causing an ache that seemed unquenchable as I made my way to the chapel that day.

Not one to pride myself on my emotions but to rely more profusely on rationality, I was perplexed that these desires amounted to such a weight in my heart. Contemplating my current state, I turned to my Bible laying next to me on that old pew. I opened it to 1 Samuel 1, where Hannah is pouring out her heart to the Lord in a heart wretched plea.

She found herself in a paradox many of us may find during our walking with the Lord. The Creator of our very being births within us desires only He can truly fulfill. Because of His sovereignty, we mustpresent those desires back to Him in worship and adoration, acknowledging His divine power.

Those dreams are laid before our God through the pouring out of our hearts. Through Christ, the supreme Mediator, we are given the opportunity to present the desires to the Lord in humble worship. We see this abundantly in the life of Hannah, who did not hide her desires and emotions before the Lord but gave them to the Lord, acknowledging His authority to govern all things. In doing so, she laid her desires in the hand of the Lord in full surrender, yielding to His ultimate will resting in the tender love and care given graciously by the Father.

Though Hannah did receive what she had desperately prayed for, that was not entirely the point. She offered the Lord the desires within her heart and yielded to His ultimate authority.

She knew where to go in time of uncertainity. Hannah held her dreams in a loose hand, not undermining their gravity but through humble recognition of whose presence she had indeed entered. 

You may find yourself in a similar place. You have desires within your heart that seem unquenchable and perhaps even painful to carry.

God sees you, and He has not abandoned the works of His hands.

As His child, you can pour out your heart to the Father. Leaving the results with Him, you can find rest in the knowledge that He is the sovereign Lord who hears you, and that He has a plan for your life.

Blessings,