The Rest of the Story
Now it came about, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli was watching her mouth. As for Hannah, she was speaking in her heart, only her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. So Eli thought she was drunk. 1 Samuel 1:12-13 NASB
Was drunk – Explanation by assumption. That’s the way most of us interpret our world. “See that man over there. Look how he’s dressed. Watch what he does. He must be ____________” (fill in the blank according to your assumptions). How many times have you been wrong about what you assumed to be true? It happens to me all the time. I’m traveling through yet another airport. I see someone and I assume I know something about that person, enough to categorize him as successful or lazy, stupid or savvy, lost or deliberate, on and on my list goes. Dumping people into my preconceived boxes instead of noticing my own emotional filters. Instead of asking the Lord, “How can I pray for that person right now so that You will speak to who he really is?”
Even priests make assumptions. This story is about a woman who was so overcome with grief that she could not vocalize her agony. She prayed from the deepest recesses of her heart but there were no words. The priest thought she was not a drunken woman; no, that’s too mild a translation. The word is shikkorah, a drunk! This is not an assessment of her present state. This is character assignment. Just like all those times that I see someone in the airport who is overweight and instantly decide that they are undisciplined and lazy. Eli didn’t assume Hannah was drunk. He assumed she was a drunk. A biblical alcoholic. I might not be a Hebrew priest, but I am just as guilty, maybe more so. How do you suppose Eli felt after he realized that this woman was weeping in the presence of YHVH? Maybe he had the same guilt pangs that I have when I recognize the sheer arrogance of my yetzer ha’ra asserting its claim that I am better. Maybe I feel the shame of realizing that I am not weeping in the presence of YHVH. Maybe I wish that I could be the biblical alcoholic of prayer.
There is a reason that the rabbis cite this story and honor this woman as the epitome of prayer. This is prayer without theology. This is the raw and unfiltered prayer straight from the depths of personality, right from the heart. This is as close as anyone can get to the white fire of God where words no longer matter or make sense. This is standing on the very edge of God’s silence and preparing to jump off the cliff. Have you ever prayed like that? Or are your prayers safe? Correct? Contained? Considered? Controlled? What would you look like to someone else if the real agony of your life were let out of that well-kept box you hide inside? Would you look like a drunk, or a madman, or someone out of control? How far have you kept yourself away from the edge because you worry about the assumptions of others?
We extol the idea of “drunk in the Spirit.” I wonder if we are brave enough, or if we hurt enough, to be shikkorah. What would you look like as a spiritual drunk?
Topical Index: drunk, shikkorah, Hannah, 1 Samuel 1:12-13
Yes I do know this….
Felt so completely and utterly lost
No words, only: O god, have mercy………
And: He showed Himself merciful! HalleluYah!
What a great word to share with my Bible study group tonight. We are studying the topic of prayer. This goes along with my notes. I had already mentioned Hannah. We are preparing ourselves for launching prayer groups in our church. Skip, I have shared some of your writings on prayer with them. Next week we are dealing with the “woodshed” – getting out of jail free.”. Thank you so much for your deep studies. They are “going out” to my world, “Jerusalem, Judea, and the uttermost parts”. You are God’s divine instrument. We pray for you.
Ouch!! That 3rd paragraph is so me controlled, contained, safe prayers so afraid of being out of control, so afraid to let go, too self aware for my own good in His presence. I wrestle constantly with myself if and when I’m really ready to go there even though I know it’s a real hindrance to my spiritual growth.
I am going through a vocational crisis at the moment. Friday at home by myself I got down on my knees and reviewed my situation with my heavenly Father. I didn’t feel “finished” so I kept praying, well more like waiting. Finally, after what seamed like 30 minutes, words of desperation began to flow and I was weeping like a scared, fatherless child. I hate being in situations like this but I felt as if a lot of stress had been let out and I imagined our Lord wants us to let go before him.
“I hate being in situations like this.” Isn’t God actually responsible for the situation? Isn’t this exactly where He wants you? Yes, of course, it feels awful because we are so prone to being in “control.” But that myth often prevents us from weeping like a child, and I am discovering that weeping like a child is really my true state of being. The control I want to exercise is merely my attempt to pretend I run the world, even my world, and I am learning the hard way that I don’t, never have and probably never will. Oh, I play my part. Generally I mess things up and God has to sit me down so I can FEEL the mess and weep like a child. But “like a child” is the place where I must be if I am ever going to draw closer to Him. I am beginning to think God really doesn’t use “adults” easily. Breakdown seems to be an essential spiritual discipline – or lack thereof. 🙂
I have thought often about how close the false lies to the true. I am sure that we like to think of them as polar opposites, because that seems so safe, like hot and cold; light and darkness. But the truth is – and we have been warned of this – that the most dangerous deceptions come as angels of light.
The “drunk in the spirit” movement could well be one of those things. To me, people want emotional release without the work, and so many of them want God to move but themselves to stay right where they are; unrepentant, arrogant and lost. I have seen that the fruit of these “wells without water” is that people end up in just the same shape that they were in before. There is only one way to a heart change, and that is the agony of honesty, which is what I see being described here. The manifestation may look the same on the surface, but the fruit is going to be miles apart.
I am so quick to take other’s inventory without the facts, and so slow to take my own having full knowledge. I stand naked and ashamed. Help me Father not to hide…….
High and Lifted Up
“Be not drunk with wine, “but” [always a word of radical contradistinction] be filled [be ye being filled] by the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5.18)
~ But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. “For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel:…’AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,’ God says, ‘THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS;… ~ (Acts 2.14-17)
When shall our prayer be? Fill with Thy Spirit, till all shall see.. Christ only – always, living in me.
How does speaking in tongues fit in with this or at all?
I can remember when our children were teenagers. When my wife or I would make some comment about somebody, based solely on appearances, our teens would say, “Don’t be so judgmental!” Out of the mouths of babes…
Assumptions/presumptions lead to character assignment/ assassination!
I notice the many “ASS” in the words above; assassination in particular.
Moral of the story- never be an ASS (poor INNOCENT donkey!) in pre-judging anyone!
Speaks of the very poor /weak character of the pre-judger/s.
In this case, it is Eli the high priest-
“God indicates that He is bringing about judgment on Eli and his house because Eli knows of the sins of his sons and does nothing to hinder them. In contemporary terms, Eli is an “enabler.” He facilitates his sons’ sinful behavior rather than resist and oppose it.
He can exercise some restraint — for example, he can remove them as priests. He can make it difficult for them to sin. Instead, he facilitates their sins, and it is for this that God deals so severely with Eli and his entire house.
This is because Eli’s sin and the sins of his sons are committed with a “high hand;”13 they are sins of presumption.” Bible.org