Mens Fall Bible Study | Week Two

August 19, 2026 | As we begin a study through the life of Samuel, Michael Pritchard looks at the difficult circumstances surrounding Samuel’s birth and the faith of his mother, Hannah. From 1 Samuel 1, we see that God can use hardship to draw us closer to Him, that He hears our prayers, and that He can be trusted even when we do not understand what He is doing. Michael also introduces three simple questions that can help us study Scripture for ourselves: What do we learn about God? What do we learn about people? And what do we need to obey?

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Men's Fall Bible Study: Week Two - August 20, 2026

00:00:00 Speaker: All right, well, if you've never met me before, you're new this week. My name is Michael Pritchard. I'm one of the ministers pastors here at Bellevue. I serve in our adult ministry. Uh, and and I'm excited. I'm one of the teachers for this semester in the men's Bible study. And we're going through, we're going to be looking at the life of Samuel over these next several weeks and months. But to get us started, to get us started this evening, I want you to turn to the miniature table, and I want you all to answer this question who is the most impactful and however you want to define that word, who is the most impactful c e o in American history? Who's the most impactful CEO in American history? Okay. You define impactful in any way that you want. All right. Go. All right. Now I'm interested. I'm interested to hear what were some of the discussions, who at your table, who is the most impactful CEO and and why was that person chosen? Yes, sir. Henry Ford. Henry Ford okay. Why Henry Ford? We're all driving Ford vehicles to this day. Now, some might say Ford stands for found on the road dead. I mean, I'm just saying some might say that. All right. Okay. Henry Ford, anybody else? You're like Henry Ford. He's the one. And anybody else? You. You said Henry Ford. Okay. Love it. Somebody else. Somebody else who's a who's another CEO? Yes, sir. Cool. Whoo! Okay. Lee Iacocca. Why? He sure did. Yeah, he he did a major turnaround, and that was not an easy feat at all. Okay. Somebody else. Somebody else? Yes, sir. Steve jobs. Okay. How many people in here have an Apple device on your person? Okay, there you go. And why? So what was your reason for saying, Steve Jobs? All right. I can't hear him. I can't hear him. The best and the worst for this country. He's done the best and the worst. Not only for our country, but really for the entire world. Right? Okay. Somebody else. Who's another CEO? Yes! Cheers. Whoo! Cheers. Oh, Sears. Okay. Why is that? Sears was the pre. They were the first Amazon right. You could like buy literal houses from Sears and anything. Anybody in here you went through the Christmas catalog. Yeah. We all just dated ourselves very very much so. Okay. One more, one more. What's one last CEO. Yes, sir. Alan Mulally, Ford and Boeing. Okay. Why is that? Well, he actually had a stakeholder centered approach to how he dealt with leadership. So they had a system in place that needed help. People around would help them. If they actually had it going well, then they would just leave them alone and those people would help the other people. Okay, I love it. All right. Who carrier. Okay. And why is that free? How many of us love some Freon, right? Especially this time of year. Well, here are just some. Here are some people I wrote down as possible examples of what y'all could have said. I said Henry Ford, right. Henry Ford is on my list. Andrew Carnegie, right. Steel any of us glad we have steel these days. Sam Walton I don't know about y'all, but I'm all about my low prices over at Walmart. Uh, Memphis's own Fred Smith shipping things all over the world, right? Uh, bill gates, Bill gates was a big deal. And Microsoft continues to be a big deal even today. Now, can I tell y'all, my favorite CEO, the one that I put down right here, this is this is who I put down right here. I put down Steve Jobs right now. Was Steve Jobs a good guy? No. Right. He was not. But he was an incredibly impactful. Now for me, back in the early two thousand, I was getting I was in the midst of getting my masters of business, and I was in the middle of a semester and I think it was I had an HP laptop at that point, and I got the blue screen of death in the middle of the semester, and I think I lost everything in the middle of my degree. And I made a decision at that point, I was like, I will never go back to windows again. And so I made the switch over to Apple early two thousand before Apple was it at this point. And I have drunk the Kool-Aid ever since, you know, and so much so that I keep up with Apple rumors. I know about the upcoming iPhone ultra, right? And it's going to cost you an arm and a leg just to get it. But I keep up with all of those things. I've read his biography because he is a fascinating character. And one of the things that I found so interesting is that he was adopted, and his adoptive dad taught him the importance of when he would do things and create things, not just to give the full attention to what people could see, but to give the full attention to everything that they couldn't see. So one time they were building a fence, and his dad made him ensure that the backside of the fence that no one could see would look just as good as the front side of the fence. And it was that lesson that Steve Jobs ended up taking into Apple, that everything he was a fanatic about ensuring that everything was top quality all the time, even at the expense of cost, even at the expense of other people's feelings. He was an abrasive person to work with, and what was made him great also did what? It drove him out of the company. They got rid of him, but it was during that time that he was gone that Apple became very dysfunctional, not profitable. And when they brought him back as CEO Apple. Now this is crazy today, right. But Apple was two months away from bankruptcy. Now that's hard to imagine today because they're like the second most valuable company in the world, around three trillion dollars. But they were two months away from being bankrupt, and they needed a man to come in and completely disrupt their dysfunctional culture and bring them back to profitability. And what began was one of the greatest runs in corporate history that started with the iPod and iTunes, which then led to the iPhone, which then led to the iPad, which then also had all the changes in MacBooks and MacBook pros and all of that. And now they are one of the most profitable companies in the world, right? Because of him. He radically changed the culture and and ended up changing our culture as well. What was it? He's giving us all the best that we now get to experience, but also some of the worst, right? Totally changes how we communicate. Totally change how we do work through apps, uh, totally change all so many aspects of our lives. And I don't know about you, but sometimes because of Steve Jobs, I spend too much time looking at stupid videos at the end of the day. AM I the only one that does that? Oh, I several of y'all. Yeah. Yeah. You're the only one, Michael. We've never done it right. And and so it's fascinating that he stepped into a dysfunctional culture and he radically transformed it into one of the most profitable, productive cultures on the entire planet. And this semester, we're talking about a man who was born into a dysfunctional culture. He was born into a dysfunctional culture that needed a man to step in and radically change it. But this this culture that he was born into was the Israelite culture. And at this point, we know that Samuel was born towards the end of the judges period and his culture. What they would do, uh, they, they were, they had a foundation of being close to God. They had a relationship with God. God had actually. Miraculously saved them from Egypt and he apparently he was a really great real estate agent and gave them amazing property and they would serve God for a while. But then, because things were easy and because they were just living the life, what did they choose to do? They just started choosing. Instead of worshiping the one true God, they started going, hey, we need to worship little stone and wood idols because that makes sense, right? And so instead of putting their trust in God, they would put their trust in these little idols and God would say, hey, you're not supposed to do that. So what would God do? He would bring punishment and allow a foreign culture to come in and dominate them, and they would become their slaves. But then after a period of time, what would those people do? God come and save us, and they would turn back to God. And what would God do? He would come and save them. But then they'd be like, God, you're the best. Thanks. And to repay you, we're going to start worshipping those idols again, right? And so they would do that over and over and over, which is the definition of dysfunctional, right? They just kept doing it over and over and over. And their dysfunction even reached into the tabernacle with the with the high priest whose sons would sin against the Lord, and he would do nothing about it. That was the culture that the man that we're going to study this semester was born into. His name is Samuel. And that's why I think studying Samuel's life right now is pretty important for all of us, because I don't know the last time you looked, but we live in a pretty similar culture. We live in a culture where our foundation, like Israel, was one of being founded with the Lord, right? We even say it's our official motto of In God We Trust. Like we, we officially are like, yeah, we have Christian roots. We love God. It's even on our money, all of those things. But we have also had we've had great revivals over the years. We've had great awakenings. We have had people drawn back to the Lord at different points. Uh, we have turned to the Lord during wars and during trials and during depressions and during pandemics and all of that. We have turned back to the Lord at different points. But I don't think there's a single one of us that would say we're a nation that reflects Christ. Would you? I don't think I would. Just a couple of stats for you. In America, the number of. The percentage of people who are depressed. Thirty percent. Thirty percent. The rates of anxiety, which have only increased dramatically in these last several years. Twenty percent of our population. How many people read the Bible on a general basis? The general population. Nine percent. Read the Bible daily. Now, within the church, it looks a little bit better. Hey, we're doing great in the church. A grand total of thirty percent. Read the Bible daily. And then the thing that we all know exists, but we don't really like to talk about it. The percentage of men who view pornography on a weekly basis eight seven percent. And there is no difference between men in the church and out of the church. So does this sound like our culture is any different from the culture that Samuel was born into? No. So just like Apple needed a man to step in and fix their dysfunctional ways, just like Israel needed a man to step in and pursue the Lord with all that he had and turn people back to him. Our nation, our city, needs men who are willing to do the same, who are willing to do the exact same as Steve Jobs did for Apple, as Samuel did for Israel. Will you will I be willing to do the same? And so that's why I'm so glad this semester that we are going to be looking at his, uh, his life from beginning to end. And tonight we're going to start at the very beginning. So if you've got your Bibles with you, I want you to open up to First Samuel chapter one. If you don't have your Bibles, I've got first Samuel one on pieces of paper at your table, but we're going to be using our Bibles each and every week. So I just want to encourage you, make sure you bring it each week so you can take notes within your Bible as well. Now I'm going to give you a brief overview of what happens in First Samuel chapter one. And here we see that there is a family. Now this family looks a little bit different from our families. Okay? Though we give America enough time, we might get there. Uh, we've got a husband who has two wives, and one of the wives has a whole bunch of kids, and the other one does not. Okay, now that looks a little bit different from our families today. Uh, but you never know. We might get here and we can reflect biblical times, uh, and, and just give us a few years. So, but one of the wives, her name is Hannah. She is unable to have children. Now, at this point, uh, you know, in our society, if someone can't have children, that's that's difficult. That's hard. Uh, that's happened in our family before. And that's an emotional time, uh, if you're attempting to have children. But, but it just can't happen, you know, but in their culture and in a woman's entire identity and worth was based upon if they could give their husband, sons and children. And so the fact that she could not meant that society looked at her and looked down upon her and judged her for that. And then it didn't help that the other wife of the family totally mocked her every day, every year, because she was unable to have children. And so this goes on for years. I don't know if you've ever been in the middle of a really hard situation that you can't solve and you can't fix, and it's really, really hard. And it just drags on for years upon years upon years. If you've ever been there, you've probably experienced the pain and the hurt that Hannah has felt here. But one year she goes into the tabernacle. She is so overcome. She is so overcome with her emotions and her our hurts and our fears and everything. She starts crying out to the Lord. The priest thinks she's drunk, which probably tells you there's not a lot of people actively seeking the Lord and crying before him. But she says, I am crying out to the Lord. He blesses her. She goes home. The Lord hears her prayers and provides her a son, and she dedicates that son to the Lord. Now, very different from how we dedicate children to the Lord. You know, when we dedicate children to the Lord, we just line everybody up at the front of the the service, make a dedication. Then we send those precious children home with their families right where they should be. She dedicated her child to the Lord and then went and dropped him off at the tabernacle and said, hey, he's yours. You raising okay. So it looked a little bit different. Okay, so that's the overview. That's what we're going to be talking about. Those are the events, but those are the just the, the framework of what we're going to learn tonight. And we're going to learn by answering three different questions. Okay. And we're going to answer these questions every week as we walk through studying about Samuel. And those questions are, what do we learn about God? What do we learn about people and what do we need to obey? Now, why are we asking those questions every week? The four teachers we've committed to talk about these questions every single week. Well, if we go back and think about the percentage of people who read the Bible daily, what that tells me is that the vast majority of you in this room don't read the Bible regularly during the week. And you know what? I've totally been in your spot, so there's no judgment from me on that. My journal is filled with entries of going, what is wrong with me? Why did I spend time with God for three straight days and then miss an entire week? Why do I only come to you, God, when things are hard? But when things get easy, I stop coming to you and I stop reading your word. My journal is filled with those types of entries. So I want you to know I get it, but it doesn't have to stay that way. And one of the best ways to help make that change is that we give you a framework for when you read scripture, how you can pull something out of Scripture so that you don't have to go, hey, I don't have a seminary degree or, hey, I've never gone to school about this. How can I read Scripture for myself and learn from God when I'm not at church? That's what these three questions are. We're going to cover these three questions every week of the semester, so that you can see that this is something you can do at home, because I guarantee you, if you don't read scripture on your own during the week, you will crumble in the face of our dysfunctional culture. That is the complete opposite of what God calls us to do. And so we want to equip you so that doesn't happen. So we're going to talk about those three questions every single week. So our first question tonight as we talk through this is what do we learn about God. So I'm going to read a few verses and you can follow along, uh, either on the screen or in your Bibles. So we're going to read verses one through two and then six through seven. There was a man from Tzofim in the hill country of Ephraim. His name was Elkanah, son of Jehoram, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuf and Ephraimite. I should have really just skipped that verse. Okay, next time I'm just skipping that verse. He had two wives, the first named Hannah, and the second Peninnah had children. But Hannah was childish or childless. Child, she was childish. All right. Verses six and seven. Her rival, meaning Hannah's rival. The other wife, would taunt her severely just to provoke her, because the Lord had kept Hanna from conceiving. Okay, so what is the first thing that we can learn about God in this passage that we're going to be reading tonight? First, God allows even prompts difficult circumstances in our lives. How many of us have ever been tempted to think, hey God, I follow you? This should you should solve all this and make this go easier. Anyone you've ever been there before, anyone you've ever heard the the story or the phrase, you know, living your best life. Now, if you just follow the Lord, then everything's going to work out. You're going to always be healthy. You're always going to have all the money that you need. You're not going to have anything to worry about. Wouldn't that be really great if that was the case? Wallace. Wouldn't that be great? It sure would. Right. But here's the thing. That's not what Scripture tells us. Scripture doesn't point us in the direction that, hey, if you just follow God, everything's going to be great and you're going to be happy every day and you're going to have nothing that will prompt worry. That is not what Scripture says. Did you catch this? It said, because the Lord had helped or kept Hannah from conceiving or literally, it says the Lord had closed her womb. Now that sounds like God is prompting this situation, right? That seems opposite of what it should be. God, shouldn't you be out to get me good things, healthy things, helping me prosper, move forward, get promotions, do all of this. But here it is at the key point of her value and her culture. What did God do? He kept her from conceiving a child. That's really hard. But God prompted that. Now, I don't know if you're like me, but over the years, as I have gone through some difficult things, I have been tempted to ask the question, why you ever gone through something hard and been like, Why God? I've asked that question a lot of times when things were hopeless, when things had fallen apart. God, I thought you would do this, but you hadn't. Why? Why would you allow this horrible thing to happen. Now, in our short time tonight, I'm going to give you two reasons that the best that I have been able to figure out in my own journey at this point. First. It drives us to God. I don't know about y'all, but I like to think that I can solve anything, that I have the strength to persevere through anything. I have the wisdom and knowledge to figure anything out, and that everything should rest on my shoulders, and I'm going to get it. Who does that sound like? I'm relying on myself, right? And y'all can just look at me. I ain't much to rely on, right? But that is what I think. But when we go through these difficult times, what it does is it drives us to the Lord and it stops us from relying on ourselves. Psalm thirty four eighteen the Lord is near the brokenhearted. He saves those crushed in spirit. The Lord is there. He is the one that can handle anything. He is the one that is able to see before and behind and go before you and behind you and to the side. He is the one that knows the beginning and the end of every situation that you are going through. And he is right there with you. But you, me think we have all the answers. And so sometimes he uses those difficult times. To bring you back to him. Okay. That's the first thing that I've learned over the years. The second thing is that why does God allow these times to happen? Because it points people to Jesus. See, first it draws us to the Lord. But then these difficult times point other people to Christ. You know, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is walking with his disciples and they come across a blind man, and the disciples are struggling with this, and they're like, hey, Jesus, why is this guy blind? And their specific question was, was it his parents sin or his sin? But basically they're asking, why would why would God allow this? Why? And Jesus response to them was that this came about so that God's work might be displayed in him. That chapter goes on to show how that man interacts with other people throughout the Throughout the area, and he tells them it was Jesus who had healed him. It was because of his difficulty that Jesus came in and he worked in an amazing way. And then what did that young man do? He pointed other people to Jesus so that they could see Jesus's power through that difficult time. Okay. So that's one thing that this passage here that points us and teaches us about God. What does it say about God that God allows even prompts difficult circumstances in our lives? Now here's what we're about to do. I'm going to give you this passage right here. First Samuel one ten through eleven and then nineteen through twenty. I want you at your tables to read those verses. And then I want you to discuss. What is something that those those verses teach us about God? Okay, I'm going to give you about five minutes to do that. All right. Read that together at your table and then talk about what does this teach us about God? Go. All right. Okay. So I gave you enough time to kind of dive into it. Somebody tell me. Somebody tell me what is something that your table discussed? One thing that we learn about God from those particular verses right there. One thing anybody willing to say, yes, sir. He's almighty and sovereign. Okay. Love it. Somebody else? Yes, sir. Allowed hardships to come so that he could be the answer to the heart. So he could be the answer to the hardship. Okay. Yes, sir. He has compassion on his people when they humble themselves before. He has compassion on his people. You know what? Sometimes it's easy to forget that, right? But he is filled with compassion. Yes, sir. Timing is more important to God than time. Timing is more important than time. Yes, because sometimes God is ready. He wants to do something at just the specific moment. Right. Okay. One more. Anybody else? Yes, sir. He answers prayer. When we realize it's not within us. But it's him and his his possibility, nothing is impossible for him. And when we come to him with that attitude, he is going to answer our prayer. I love it. That's right. So this is do you see? Do you see how easy it can be to pull out truth from Scripture. One of the things that I pulled out was that God hears our prayers, right? Have you ever felt like God didn't hear your prayers? Anyone? Okay. There's only me. And like two other people, all of y'all super close to the Lord. Okay? Now, the other the other day, my poor wife. I don't know if this has ever happened in your house before where she my wife asked me to fix something. Our splash guard on the kitchen sink just started disintegrating, and so whenever she would use the garbage disposal, just over the course of a couple of weeks, more food just kept getting phone out of the of the sink. Has that ever happened to any of y'all? Right. And the splash guard just was disintegrating and just disappearing. So she was like, Michael, can you fix this? I said, yes, I can fix this. And I promptly didn't write it down right. Multiple days passed. Michael, can you fix this? I really don't like getting all the spaghetti sauce all over my shirt when I turn this off. And I said, yes, I can fix this. And then I promptly didn't do it right. She even went to Amazon and was like, I'm going to find this thing myself. And so she went and found it and she ordered it. And she said, Michael, can you put this and fix it? And I said, yes, I can fix it. And then I promptly did not. Has that ever happened at your house before? And so finally, one Saturday morning, one Saturday morning, I finally went, today's the day, right. And I pulled it out. And I'd never I'd never replaced one of these before. So I watched a couple videos and, and she was about to leave to go run an errand, and I went home. All I got to do is pull out the old one and then just pop in the new one. I thought I was going to have to take the garbage disposal off all the thing. It took me literally fifteen seconds and she was about to walk out and I said, babe, I really want to let you leave. And then when you come back say, man, I spent all of this time fixing this for you. But I've got to be honest, it took me a grand total of fifteen seconds. And thankfully, I have a very understanding wife. Right. But can have you ever been have you ever felt like you were the wife in the situation going, God, will you fix this? God, will you fix this? God, will you fix this? And you're just waiting and waiting. That was Hannah, right? But what we learn in this passage is that God hears our prayers. Right. I think that's pretty phenomenal. We know this intellectually. We've been taught that. But it is so much different when we're waiting on God to still trust him when we go, God, will you fix this? And I will trust you as I wait. It's really hard. Okay. So that's our first question. Do you see this is something you can do, right? Okay. So what's our second question? What's our second question? What do we learn about people? Okay. So let's read let's read verses seven and eight. Seven and eight year after year when she went to the Lord's house, meaning Hannah, her rival taunted her in this way. Hannah would weep and would not eat. Hannah. Why are you crying? Her husband, Elkanah would ask. Why won't you eat? Why are you troubled? AM I not better to you than ten sons? So the first thing we learn about people is that husbands say stupid stuff sometimes, right? Or what? Our wives are just in their feelings and you're like, I am the answer. Look how amazing I am, right? That doesn't work for y'all. Doesn't work for me either, right? So but that has happened over millennia. We husbands sometimes say stupid stuff when our wives are hurting. But what is something actually we can take from this? Okay. What is something that we can learn about people. You will meet cruel people who actively seek to hurt you. You will. There will be cruel people who actively revel in your pain. Listen to these verses. King David said in Psalm twenty seven, when the wicked advance against me to devour me. Jesus said in Matthew ten, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Then Jesus said in John fifteen, if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. So here's the question why do we get shocked? When people don't like us. Why do we get all bent out of shape? When someone makes fun of us. The Bible's made it clear it's going to happen. And especially it will happen if you decide to give the Lord your entire life and not worry about what people think. Now, I don't know about y'all, but inwardly I'm a people pleaser. I'm willing to have conflict and I will have conflict. But you know what? If I don't have to have conflict, I try and stay out of it, right? And that can cause me to sometimes not be as bold as I should because I want. I don't want people to be cruel to me. I want people to like me. But that's not biblical. If I go around, I only want people to like me. Then I'm never going to speak the truth about who Christ is to our our world, because it's a given. There will be people who are cruel to you, especially if you proclaim Christ. Okay, so that's one thing that we can learn here. Now, I want you all to read this next passage. First Samuel one, verses twelve through eighteen. And I want you to talk at your tables. What do we learn about people? In this passage, first Samuel one twelve through eighteen. I'm going to give you five minutes to talk through that. All right. All right. I'm going to ask you again, but this time it's got to be guys that did not answer the question last time. Okay. What can we learn about people from that particular passage that we just looked at? It's got to be somebody that didn't speak last time. Yes, sir. People judge too quickly of things about you. That's right. People will judge you and they don't have any of the information. Right. And they will do it to you. And maybe we do it to other people. Oh, no, no, not us, not us. Okay. Okay. Yeah. There we go. Okay. Yes, sir. Judge negatively that which we don't know. Okay, that's pretty interesting. And I'm sure nobody has ever done this before. Say that a little. Not at the not at this table. Say it loudly for everybody to hear. Again. We judge negatively that which we don't know. We think the worst about people when we don't have all the information. I'm glad you guys have never done that before. We can also change our position once we have that understanding. Because that's what happened here. We went from negative and unsupportive to very much supportive, which made her feel great. And she went on about her way. Uh, so but it's not always a given, is it? He just said that you people can change their perception when they have all the information, but sometimes that's not always the case. People you, me, we like to stick to the narrative we have put in our own head. Right? But did you also see how, uh, his words were incredibly comforting? Like, we have power. People have power that when someone is hurting the right words, a little bit of time can radically change someone's mindset and greatly encourage them. So people have a lot of influence and power over them. Okay. So that's something we can learn about people from this passage. Tonight. We got one last question. We got one last question that we're going to ask tonight. What do we need to. Oh, Bay. Now, anytime we're reading through Scripture, anytime we're reading Scripture or we're learning from it, we always want to make sure we're not just building up our head knowledge, but that we're actually looking to seek to apply it. Okay. So here's, here's one verse, verse ten, deeply hurt. Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears. This is what I took from that is that we can trust God with our pain. I want you to write that down. You can trust God with my pain. Did you notice earlier? And this is where I love it when things work together. We learned something about God, which is that pain and hardship has a purpose, right? So that when you are deeply hurt, you've got a choice to make. Is it is that pain going to draw you closer to the Lord where you turn to the Lord? Is it or is it going to draw you and push you away from the Lord? That is a legitimate choice that you must make. But if you remember, what we learned about God earlier is that he is trustworthy and that he has a purpose. Then what this happens is that then when you seek to obey and do like Hannah did, is that you trust him with your pain. Instead of saying, God, you have forsaken me. I'm never going to follow you again. You say, God, I don't understand, but I'm going to trust you, even though I don't know how this will work out. Psalm thirty four eighteen. God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. I don't know about you all, but I think the job hunt is one of the hardest things a man must go through because you consistently put yourself out there over and over and over, and potentially you get rejected over and over and over. Back in the two thousand, I before I was in ministry, my background is business. I was looking for a job and I was putting out applications and resumes everywhere. Now, this was the very beginning of the digital revolution, right? And so I thought it was amazing that I was uploading my resume and applications to all these websites. That was a new thing back then. Uh, but I was uploading and applying all over the place, getting nothing. And I had applied, you might know there's a very large transportation company in our, in our city. And I had applied multiple times there. And I found that I was getting absolutely nothing in return. And every day I woke up, my confidence was a little bit lower and a little bit lower, and my bank account was even lower and lower. Right. Going, God, nobody. I'm never going to find another spot. No one's ever going to want me. My purpose, my identity is all wrapped up in this. And I was getting nothing in return. One night it was a Sunday night. I got a phone call that a nother church in the area was sending a mission trip. A large group down to the Dominican Republic. They had had someone drop out at the very last second and they said, hey, Michael, we know you don't have anything going on. Yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot. Right. We know you don't have anything going on. You want to go? It's already been paid for. That's a key component for someone who doesn't have a job. And. And you can go. The thing is, we're leaving at seven a m tomorrow morning. Well, let me let me. I gotta figure that out. Right. So got off the phone, I prayed about it, and basically I said, God, you know, I'm looking for a job. You know, I need a job. You know, I need money and all of that. But you this has been placed in my lap. I will trust you with my job hunt and go on this trip and go and serve people down in the Dominican Republic. So we were down in the doctor and we were one day we were out in the middle of the sugar cane fields. Literally, I have no clue. We were out in the middle of nowhere, sugar cane fields. I'm with a group of men, and the dreaded question comes up, when you don't have a job, what do you do? Great. Right now I gotta spill my guts to these guys, right? They don't know me. I don't even go to their church. And. And so I just said, hey, you know, I'm in the middle of, you know, I'm looking for a job right now. I've been applying at Fedex but haven't heard anything, you know, and so I'm just that's what I'm, that's what I'm up to. No lie. One of the men standing with me in the middle of the sugar cane field and on an island outside of America, said, well, I'm a manager at Fedex. When we get back in town, why don't you send me your resume? I went, thank you very much. I will be sure to do that. Right. So we got back to Memphis within a month. I had a job. Now, do you think. I mean, yes, the Lord. That was a very defining moment in my in my path of faith with the Lord. Um. Do you think I went to God every day? Yeah. Do you think I was despairing? And I saw that zero getting closer and closer and closer in my bank account. Yes. But did the Lord show that if I will just obey and trust him, what will he do? He will cover and protect me. He will. He took me thousands of miles away to get me a job at a business ten miles away. But who gets the glory for it twenty years later? Not me. Because I had nothing to do with it. The Lord gets all the credit for that. And that has been just one of many ways that I have seen the Lord do amazing things. When I have called on his name and said, I've got. I don't have it. God, I need you to. I will trust you with my pain. And the Lord has proven himself trustworthy. So one last passage for you guys to read. First Samuel one twenty six through twenty eight. I want you to answer, what do we need to obey now in this passage, Samuel has been born. Hannah has returned to the tabernacle. She is about to honor her promise to give her son back to the Lord. That's the context. Okay, so read that those verses and then talk about it at your tables. All right. One last time. I'm going to ask for a few guys to answer. And again, it's got to be someone who has not answered the first two times. Okay. It's got to be someone who has not talked the first two times. What did your groups talk about? What do we need to obey? What do we need to obey? Yes, sir. Faith. Elaborate just a little bit. She had faith in the Lord. That's right. Okay. Mhm. What does that mean, Josiah? Do you think she was tempted to keep him? I've never thought about that until this very moment. Do you think after pleading for a child for so long, do you think she ever had a thought? What if I kept him this blessing from the Lord? HMM. Yes, sir. That's right. She gave back her best. All right, one last one. Yes, sir. Don't you wish that you would give God your all, and it didn't require a. The hardest of the. Hard for that to happen. May we all this week be willing to give the Lord everything that we have, and may it not require a crisis in our lives. Well, gentlemen, we just talked about three questions when you read scripture. And you guys had some great discussion around those tables. Are these three questions that you can read or answer when you read scripture at home? I think they are. I'm going to encourage you this week. Start reading through first, Samuel. Just read through it one chapter. Answer those questions and just work through them, just like we did tonight. And we got some rich answers about who the Lord is, about who people are and how we can obey. Okay, I'm going to pray for us. And then I got one thing to tell you, and then we will be good. You can eat your Skittles and head on out to see your families. All right. Let me pray for us. Lord. Thank you. Thank you for your word. Lord, if it was not for your word and your spirit and your presence, we would crumble in the face of all that this world throws at us. But you fill us with your strength. Because you are God and we are not. This week may we remember the truth. We have talked about this evening, and may we turn to you and trust you in our pain and our hardships so that you can bring about amazing results that will bring you glory and not us. Lord, we love you. We pray all this in the name of your son. Amen. One last thing. This Sunday, we are launching several new life groups. We are starting a men's group. We're starting several couples groups, all of that. If you are not in a life group, would love to encourage you. This is a great time to hop in one. There is specifically a men's life group that's being led by Bobby Blanton, who is typically in this room. He's in Denver tonight, but he is launching a group at eight this coming Sunday. Would love to have you hop in. If you want that room number, come and find me and I'll give it to you. Okay? Y'all have a great week. We'll see you next Wednesday.