The Spirit of God says that this is Hannah’s prayer, so it is something addressed to the Lord, and it is here recorded in God’s blessed Word. It is a most remarkable scripture! Hannah says, “My heart rejoices in the Lord.” It is a wonderful thing to be brought to that point of triumph. There was a time when she wept. There was a time when her soul and heart were heavy, but the Lord came in and delivered her, and instead of her being occupied just with her deliverance, she is occupied with her Deliverer. A large percent of teaching in this day is calculated to engage us with ourselves and the work of the Spirit in us, rather than with Christ and His work for us.

What you find characterizing Hannah is, that she is not looking within; she is not engaged with herself; she is occupied with the Lord. If we know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we should be, as to the state of our souls, where we can squeeze the very juice of praise out of the most knotty circumstances. Even at this moment there was a great deal of trial for Hannah’s heart. I have no doubt that there was quite a tug there, but she rejoiced in the Lord, gloried in the Lord, and was glad in the Lord. There is a lesson in this for us.

One reason we go through the world so languidly, so lazily, so haltingly, is because we are not glad in the Lord. I sometimes think that we are a very poor advertisement for what we profess. The happiest, the most joyous people in this world should be those who know Jesus as their Savior, and have owned that blessed One as their Lord. I do not mean they will not have sorrows; they will, but just as the apostle says, if we do have the trouble and sorrow, “yet always rejoicing”; sorrows at the bottom, joys on top.