The Real Housewives Of The Old Testament

Raise your hand if high school was the best season of your life.

Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?

*Cricket

Just what I thought. Lets face it, high school was a social nightmare for most of us. The awkwardness. The cliques. He said she said. Gossip. Drama. It can’t get any worse socially. At least that’s what I thought until I saw 5mins of the real housewives of Beverly Hills. [Don't ask me why but I promise it was only 5mins]...

Let me put it this way, If aliens invaded the earth, all we’d have to do is show them 5 seconds of that show and they’d turn around or blow their ship up. Its absolutely horrible. Watching rich 50 year old women throw temper tantrums and interact socially like my 13 year old daughter makes me cringe.

But to be fair, the OT has its fair share of real housewives drama. Started reading 1 Samuel a few weeks ago [Yes its possible that the only reason I’m reading it is cause its named after me. Is that a crime?] and I honestly laughed out loud at how borderline ‘Jerry Springer’ it was.

Here’s the breakdown:

* There’s a dude named Elkanah.

* He’s got 2 wives. [told you this was interesting]

* One’s called Hannah and the other is called Peninnah [apparently dude man was really attracted to girls whose names ended with ‘-nnah’]

* Hannah is barren but [yes u guessed correctly] Peninnah had lots of babies.

Somebody say d-r-a-m-a in high pitched voice.

1 Samuel 1:4-6

"Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah... But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her...Because the LORD had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. 7 This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat”

So husband played favorites with wives while baby-making-wife tortured barren wife for years and years, so much so that barren-wife wept and would not eat. Just the kind of drama you’d expect with ‘the real wives’ [why exactly are they called that?].

The big difference in this story though is how this real wife [Hannah] responds to the social drama.

10 In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD.

Isn’t that the exact opposite of what we do? Apparently Hannah didn’t get the memo on ‘4 ways to treat offensive and mean people’

1. Lash out. React. Quarrel. Claw. Fight. Hit back

2. Throw pity party for myself. A costume pity party where I’m dressed as the fairness police. Woe is me.

3. Have imaginary arguments in our heads with the people who crossed us.

4. Hold grudge. Keep record of the wrong.

Chances are most of us make a living responding in 1 or more of those ways when wronged. But not Hannah. Hannah vented to God. She let God have it. She prayed and wept so intensely that ELI the priest on duty thought she was completely smashed on beer.

Imagine if this was our response to unfairness?

Imagine if we dump trucked unmet expectations on God rather than people?

Imagine if you channeled your bitterness to God every time someone short changed or cheated you?

10 In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD.

And guess what?

19 ...and the LORD remembered her. 20 So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the LORD for him.”

God listened.

What is your most consistent response when people treat you unjustly?

Also, why do you think its so unusual for us to pray the kind of prayers Hannah prayed? [venting, in deep bitterness]