Wrestling Prayer

I led my small group on Sunday.  We're supposed to pick a Psalm and talk about it, so I chose Psalm 34 since I memorized it in college.  Surely I could think of something off the cuff, since, haha, obviously I'm mentally empty.  So an hour before our gathering, I read the thing, and wouldn't you know.  The whole psalm is about God meeting our needs.

WELL.  That sounds exactly like the thoughts that have been sticking to my brain walls for the last few days.  So during small group, I gave an overview of needs and coping strategies and does God always meet our needs like it's promised?

And this woman, Linda, she just blew me away.  We were talking about God not meeting our needs, and she said, "I think Hannah's story teaches us a lot about this. [start of 1 Samuel]  She wants kids, she needs kids in that culture.  Her husband has at least two examples of barren wives from Israelite history.  Abraham and Sarah didn't trust God, and look at that mess.  Isaac prayed for Rebecca, though, and she became pregnant.  What we miss is that he prayed for twenty years.  But Elkanah followed Abraham and married this fertile awful woman who threw her happiness in Hannah's face.  That must have been miserable, just absolutely miserable.  And while this was going on, Hannah must have felt totally ignored by God.  She must have thought he wasn't meeting her needs, and it must have hurt so badly.  But God was working in her.  He knew Israel needed a judge, and he needed to wrestle this prayer out of her, make her so aware of her pain that eventually she prayed that beautiful prayer and promises to give up her son to God if only she could conceive.  God wrestled that prayer out of her, and he knew she would keep her word.  He knew she had fought for that faith.  So when she gave birth to Samuel, she gave him to the temple, and the great thing is that the Bible makes sure we know that Samuel went back to visit her often.  She got what she needed, and Israel got the leader they needed, and all of that could only have happened if Hannah trusted God while thinking he wasn't meeting her needs."

Obviously all I could do at the end of this was goggle at her and croak out, "Thank you for sharing."

Because what I was thinking was, "What prayer is God trying to wrestle out of me?  And am I willing to pray it?"