God is on the move in mysterious ways and what often seems like chance is God's divine design in our lives.

When it feels like there's a setback in your life, it could be that he's preparing you for the future.

So if your life is dark now, hold on. Your story is not yet finished.

Do we trust in God or do we just do what is right in our own eyes? He writes

better endings than we ever could. Today we're going to look at the beginning of 1st Samuel

and the book of Ruth. So if you think about the big picture of where we are

in the Old Testament, these chapters are going to take us from the time period of the judges to just

before Saul is to be called as the first king of the United Israel. Now a couple of little details.

What we have today as first and second Samuel was originally one book known as Samuel,

but for convenience and scroll length, they divided it into two books. Another thing to consider

is that the books of Samuel and Ruth, as well as other books like Kings and Chronicles, they're

written by anonymous authors. Often we read the book of Mormon and we're familiar with Nephi or

Mormon interjecting as the narrator, talking about what they're doing. But in Ruth and Samuel,

we see anonymous narrator, so they're not talking to us directly. Chronologically speaking,

the book of Ruth appears before the book of First Samuel. But if it's okay with you,

we're going to start with the chapters in First Samuel and then we'll end today in the book of First Samuel. But if it's okay with you, we're going to start with the chapters in First Samuel, and then we'll end today in the book of Ruth. So First Samuel comes during the time period of the judges, and there's a woman who's weeping. Her name is Hannah, and she's weeping because she can't have children. We read, her husband, Elkanah, would say to her, Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than 10 sons? I love Elkanah's perspective. I'm a husband. I'm like, yeah, don't you think I'm great? I'm a husband. This is amazing. But unfortunately, Elkanah was not as good to Hannah as all these sons.

She wanted a child.

Now some people in Hannah's position would say, God's not answering my prayers, so I'm just

going to stop praying.

Not Hannah.

She doesn't give up on God.

Instead of turning away from him, she continues to trust in him.

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