DONNA: Sit down a few minutes. Now you’re going to find a little bit how old school I am because I believe there’s a secret hidden right here in chapter 1 of 1st Samuel that we need to get back to as a Church. Because not only did Hannah go to the house of God, but the Bible says that she began to pour out her heart to the Lord in prayer. Darling, this is a lost art in the Church of Jesus Christ! We have become a thumb-oriented group of people! We want instant answers to our deepest questions. We want miracles that come through the internet. And they can come that way. But I’m going to tell you if we want to see God move on this generation there’s no exchange for getting’ on our faces before God! There’s no exchange for time spent in the presence of the Lord! And I believe that this is part of the reason why we’ve suffered and we’ve seen backslidden children, children that are having babies out of wedlock and they’re getting hung up on drugs. It’s because parents have looked to the ministry gifts to be all the answers! I remember when I had a Christian school. There were some parents that wanted to just drop their kids off and have me magically infuse them with Christian values and they’d just go off scot-free! And I’d say Hey! I can only reinforce what you’re teaching in the home! If you’re not teaching it and living it before the kids there’s not one thing I can do!
AUDIENCE: Amen!
DONNA: And it’s the same thing with prayer! You know a prayer is our communication with the throne! That’s how we get access to all those things that God wants to give to us. And the Word of God reveals something. When Hannah began to pray something happened to her prayer! I want you to see the change that happened. She went from saying Oh God, I’m barren. Oh God, I’m so sad. Oh God, You’ve forsaken me. Oh God, I just want a kid! Oh God, I’m so embarrassed! O God, me, me, me, me, me, my, my, my, my, my. I want, I want, I want, I need, I need, I need!
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
DONNA: Where a lot of Christians that’s where they end their prayer! But while she was on her face, while she was in travail, while she was in that place where she would not be denied suddenly her prayer changed and she said God, if You’ll give me a son, I’ll give him to You. And God said That’s it!
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHING]
DONNA: That’s what I was waiting for! I just wanted permission. I wanted you to release him to me. I’ve got an agenda for this generation! I’ve got a plan and I needed a holy woman of God that would know how to pray, know how to connect with me, and know how to submit her will to My will! That’s why you’ve been barren, Hannah. Not because you’re backslidden but because you’re holy and you know how to pray! Hallelujah! Some of you don’t know how close you are to your miracle!
AUDIENCE: [CLAPPING]
DONNA: You’re one prayer meeting away, one prayer meeting away from your miracle! Stop looking to everybody else to give it to you! Just get on your face. Now let me show you proof of this. I’m going to read from chapter 2 where God said it. Now you have to read this in your personal time, in your own devotions because the first four chapters gives a real clear description about what was going on in the church, I mean in the nation of Israel. The Bible says that there was no widespread revelation. That Eli’s eyes were going dim and I believe that’s in the spiritual too. But God still had a plan. He was waiting on Hannah to pray because in verse 35 of chapter 2 He says this: Then I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in My heart and in My mind. I will build him a sure house and he shall walk before My anointed forever. You see unfortunately there’s been a subtle twist to the Gospel where we feel like the world is waiting on our ministry gift. You know we’re God’s next great answer to the world but what God’s waiting for are men and women of God who are willing to say God, wherever You send me I’ll go! Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it, God! I want to do what’s in Your heart! I’ve got a lot of things in my mind, things I think should be done a certain way. But God I want only what You want because when I’m in alignment with You all of my needs are met!
AUDIENCE: Amen!
DONNA: Isn’t that what the Word says? Before I even called He’ll answer me? Heh! I don’t even have to tell Him what I need. All I have to say is Lord, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven! Amen?
AUDIENCE: Amen!
DONNA: You see this is what Hannah found the secret and it was in that praying through. And we used to have that expression in the church. You know the mothers of the church always knew how to pray through. Sometimes it was a three-day fast. Sometimes it was two hours in the prayer closet, right?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
DONNA: And I used to try to find a scripture for what it means to pray through and I think Hannah is about the closest I could find to it. But I don’t have to have a scripture for it. I just know when I have! Amen? And I believe this is where God’s getting the Church so that He can raise up for this generation leaders that will do everything that is in His heart! I have a pastor, a minister friend who’s an evangelist, he’s a very close friend of mine, and God has given him a mighty healing ministry. And he told me this story in private. He said Donna, when I first started out in ministry you know he said I was being invited to big churches and he said I was young. He was 16, 17, 18 years of age and God was giving him great miracles. And he was in South Bend Indiana and he was actually preaching at Lester Sumrall’s church that weekend but somebody had invited him to come to a church in the area and I think it was on a Wednesday night. And when he got to the church on Wednesday night there was only a handful of people there. Maybe 12, 13, 15 people and he got mad. He got cocky. He says why in the world am I in this church? I’m packing them in by the thousands over at the big church! Why’d you send me here, God? I’m not going to get much of an offering here tonight.
AUDIENCE: Mm.
DONNA: Now he, you know this is pretty humbling for him to be telling me this but he told me with tears in his eyes that when he got back to the room Jesus met him in the room.
AUDIENCE: Wow.
DONNA: And he said I didn’t see Him but I felt His presence and I saw the light come into my room and the Lord said to me If that small group of people is not too small for me to show up, who are you?
AUDIENCE: Yes. Wow.
DONNA: Huh! See Jesus isn’t necessarily looking for the crowd. He’s looking for faith! And Church this is what we have to do. We have to get back to the place where we’re going to believe God for a change not only in our life but a change in our generation! How many of you know this generation needs it?
AUDIENCE: Yes!
DONNA: You know we spend so much time looking at the news and trying to decide who’s the next president that’s going to be, that’s going to make us great again. I’m going to tell you. No man, no woman ever going to change this nation! There’s only One’s that’s going to change it! And that’s the living Christ!
AUDIENCE: [CLAPPING]
DONNA: And it’s time we learn to get back into relationship with Him! Amen?
AUDIENCE: Yes!
DONNA: There’s one more point that I want to make and this is something that really is an instinctual part of when we have prayed through. When Hannah got an answer from Eli the priest that God had heard her prayer, this is what Hannah said, what the Bible says about her. She said let Your maidservant find favor in your sight. So the woman went her way and she ate and her face was no longer sad. What did that mean? She had come in there depressed but when she received that Word witnessed by Eli that God had heard your prayer she didn’t hold a baby in her hands yet but she had the witness of the Word in her spirit and it immediately changed her countenance! Hallelujah!
AUDIENCE: Amen! [CLAPPING]
DONNA: It immediately relieved her depression! It immediately caused her to stand up and the next verse said they went and worshipped! Hallelujah! I kind of picture Hannah as a person. She was so excited about that baby in her womb that for the next nine months she was just walking around the house with her hands raised! Blessed be the name of the Lord! He doesn’t forget His children but He’s honored His handmaid and hallelujah, and before she cradled Samuel in her arms she had expectancy that God was faithful to answer her! And that’s how I want to encourage you today. I know what it’s like to pray and trust and quote scripture and still not see an answer to prayer! I know what that’s like! Sometimes we feel I’ve sinned and then we repent of every sin we can think of! Sometimes we feel like God has rejected us. We begin to listen to that little voice in our ear. Or that maybe it wasn’t God’s will for us and we have that tendency to want to give up on hope. But I want to tell you today I’ve come to encourage your faith! That your miracle is not just about you! God has His Church in a place right now to break through as we’ve never broken through before! We’ve got to set in our sights what He wants to do in the lives of our children and in our grandchildren. What He wants to do in the government halls in this nation. What He wants to do in the school systems. What He wants to do under tents and in coliseums. What He wants to do in the arts and the entertainment. We’ve got to start having a vision that comes from heaven! We need to say God, I’m going to rise up and finally obey Jesus! There’s only one prayer that You taught me to pray and that is this: Lord, let Your kingdom come, let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven! For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory! Can you imagine if we walked the streets saying that? Let Your kingdom come God! Yours is the kingdom and the power of the glory! Let Your kingdom come, God, right here! Stand to your feet and let’s just begin to release that faith to the Lord. Just begin to talk to God in your own way. Would you do it? Thank You, Jesus!
