Welcome to this weekend's In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley.

Today we begin a series of messages from First and Second Samuel that will help you develop a heart for God, one that can transform your life and influence those around you.

Join us now for the opening message titled Holding On to Hope.

Hope is the desire for something good and the expectation that

you and I will receive it. And the stronger our desire, the greater our hope, the more tenaciously

we hold on to what we hope for. And yet in spite of that, all of us have had those hopes

that sometimes we had to struggle to hold on to.

And there's particular reasons for that.

And sometimes we've been tempted to give up, to lay them down to surrender our hopes.

And if God has placed the hope in your heart, don't give it up, don't surrender it no matter what. Now I want you to turn,

if you will, to the book of First Samuel. And in First Samuel, there is a beautiful example of

someone who held on to their hope in spite of many, many difficult circumstances. And so in the

process of looking at this passage, I think you'll find something

that will be most encouraging to you. First Samuel, chapter one, and it begins like this.

Now, that was a certain man from Ramatham, Zofium, from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name

was Elkanah, the son of Jeron, the son of Ilau, the son of Tohu, the son of Zoof,

and Ephraimite. And he had two wives. The name of one was Hannah and the name of the other

Penina, and Panana had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man would go up from the city

yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of Host in Shalow

and the two sons of Eli, Hoffney and Phinehas, were priest to the Lord there.

And when the day came, the Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Panana, his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters. But to Hannah, he would give a double

portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had closed her womb. Her rival, that is the second wife here.

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