Welcome to season 2 of the Determined to Dance podcast. I pray that you’ll be uplifted, encouraged, and will move forward each and every day. Today’s episode, The Eternal Difference of Prayer, looks at Hannah in the Old Testament and her joyful prayer.

Stay determined to dance. Those are the words that end each episode of my podcast. I want to cheer on our perseverance in a chaotic world. From what I’ve seen, the unrest isn’t going anywhere soon and we need all the encouragement we can get.

But can we do more than just survive, only hang on? I believe so. We can learn, grow, even thrive when part of our world is in shambles.

How? It’s simple but not easy. Our relationship with Father God, surrendering our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ and the leading of the Holy Spirit. I don’t believe it’s possible to keep going without this relationship.

One imperative in our ability to dance with God is prayer. Two-way communication. We bare our hearts to God and then listen for His response.

In my life, prayer is so important that I plan to commit this season, 40 episodes, to the back and forth talks between God and us. No matter how many books, articles, or short stories I write, or how many podcasts I make, nothing will make an eternal difference more than the prayers I lift to Him. It’s the same for you.

The long prayers and the brief prayers. Joyful ones. Grieving ones. The hopeful and the I’m-about-to-give-up ones. Prayer makes more of a difference in our own lives and the people around us than we’ll ever know here on earth. I truly believe we’ll be astounded when we reach heaven.

Picture a couple on the dance floor after their wedding. The young man leads his beautiful bride around the room, swept up in her splendor, wanting the world to see her but then again for her to only have eyes for him. They are so close; he feels each of her heartbeats as if it’s his own.

There is laughter, intimacy, words exchanged between pulses of music, and intricate dance steps.

What we don’t see if the groom doing all the talking. Or the bride. It’s a time of sharing with each looking to the needs of the other. They are one.

And the wonder of it all is that God longs to have such a relationship with us. The creator and God of the universe wants me. You.

But we have a choice. Do we dare to dance with Him? Or should we simply make our way through life on our own?

I love the story of Hannah in the Old Testament. She is the mother of the soon-to-be prophet, Samuel. After praying for a child while in the temple and promising to dedicate her firstborn to the Lord, she became pregnant with Samuel. She kept him until he was weaned and then presented him to the prophet Eli, to be raised in the house of the Lord.

You would think she would be devastated, depressed, and ready to change her mind. But no. Scripture records her prayer song as she joyfully gives her son to God. I love the thoughts shared in the Message Bible in I Samuel 2:1-10:

“Hannah prayed: I’m bursting with God-news! I’m walking on air. I’m laughing at my rivals. I’m dancing my salvation.

Nothing and no one is holy like God, no rock mountain like our God. Don’t dare talk pretentiously—not a word of boasting, ever!

For God knows what’s going on. He takes the measure of everything that happens. The weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces, while the weak are infused with fresh strength. The well-fed are out begging in the streets for crusts, while the hungry are getting second helpings. The barren woman has a houseful of children, while the mother of many is bereft.

God brings death and God brings life, brings down to the grave, and raises up. God brings poverty and God brings wealth; he lowers, he also lifts up. He puts poor people on their feet again; he rekindles burned-out lives with fresh hope, restoring dignity and respect to their lives— a place in the sun!

For the very structures of earth are God’s; he has laid out his operatio...