I REMEMBER YOU!

What’s wrong with this picture? Father God suddenly slaps His forehead and says, “Oh, yes, I remember you!” And yet that’s what the Word seems to say in 1 Samuel 1:19: “Then they rose up in the morning early, and worshiped before the LORD, and returned, and came to their house at Ramah; And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD remembered her.”

Out of this encounter Hannah and her husband conceived a child who would be known as Samuel, one of the great judges of Israel. Isn’t it delightful to know that God had a slight memory lapse but just in time remembered who Hannah was and also remembered the tremendous need in Israel for strong and righteous leadership? When His memory returned, God saw Hannah and her husband enjoying a little morning friskiness and opened Hannah’s womb for the first time.

Of course, I jest about God’s memory loss. Sometimes our beloved English language lets us down or maybe it’s just the archaic translation of the King James Version. Well, again I jest, but this time at the expense of the language and the translators.
A little background here will be helpful before we tackle this troublesome phrase, “and the LORD remembered her.”

Hannah was one of two wives of Elkanah. The other wife had numerous sons and daughters but Hannah was barren and it broke her heart.

Each year the whole family went to Shiloh to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts.

Hannah was so discouraged by her barrenness that one day while in Shiloh, she went alone to the tabernacle to pray. She went before the Lord and cried and prayed a prayer of bitter disappointment. In her brokenness she made a vow that if God would give her a male child, she would give the boy to the Lord for his entire life to be one of service to God.

The corrupt priest Eli saw this broken woman praying and because he could not hear any words coming from her mouth, he wrongly assumed that she was drunk. Eli rebuked her and told her to put the wine away, to stop drinking. Hannah’s response was, “No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord.”

Eli corrected himself and said, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition” (v. 17). And Hannah then uttered one final prayer, “Let your maidservant find favor in your sight” (v. 18).

This is the background that takes us to verse 19 and the phrase, “and the Lord remembered her.”

Had the Lord God forgotten Hannah? Had He pushed her over to a corner of His mind where she was literally out of sight and so then out of mind? The answer is a clear and unequivocal NO! God does not forget or give up on His people.
“And the Lord remembered her.” So what does this mean then?

In large part, this was the Lord God responding to the brokenhearted cry of a barren woman. Remember, the word as it is used here means that God was reflecting on her, on her prayers; it means to be mindful of, to literally be held in the memory of. It means that God was thinking about her, thinking about her situation, and listening to her prayers. It means that we are never, ever out of God’s mind. We are His children and His attention is continually focused on us.

As the technological advances of our age continue at an accelerating rate, it seems as though we are constantly being reduced to another number, another password. I don’t need my name to get onto the Internet, get into my bank account, or check my pyramid of offshore investments. All I need is an impersonal set of numbers and letters in the right sequence. I have gone from being a person to a code, a password! All of this technological forward movement is reducing the sense of personal value, of meaning, to so many in our culture. There is a greater sense of loneliness, meaninglessness and isolation today than ever before.

It cannot help but affect those of us in the church; we live in this world too. (At least most of us do—there are a couple of you reading this that I’m not sure what planet you are on. Of course, I jest again, except for people from Florida.) It has even crept into the church. It seems to me that some of our contemporary worship songs reflect a feeling that God is somewhat distant and removed from the everyday needs of His people. I believe that many of these songs are really cries for help from a generation that is lonely and has not fully grasped just how much God cares for them.
“I have formed you, you are My servant;
O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me!” (Isaiah 44:21)

Father God is always thinking about and responding to His people. Our relationship with Him is not impersonal, distant or forgotten!

“And the Lord remembers you” (1 Samuel 1:19).