In this week's episode, second from the “Faith Full: Extraordinary Women of the Bible” series, we talk about a different woman who has shown her faithfulness and who we can look at as an example: Hannah.

The two books of Samuel begin with her story.  She was someone that requested something from God. Sometimes we can ask for things that seem really important and valuable to us and God’s answer is still no. 

But God did answer Hannah's prayer.  

In James 4, verses two and three it says: “You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” 

Now we know that when Hannah asked, her motive was right with God. We see this in how she dedicated her son to the Lord and relinquished the very gift that she had asked for. Even though it was one of the greatest wishes of her life, she recognized that she was actually not giving away her child. She was actually giving back the gift that was already God's. 

All good things are gifts from God.  

As we talked through Hannah’s story, we realized that Hannah is a good example of purpose in pain.  Her story shows us that God is not only sovereign over the nations and history, but He's also sovereign over our lives and always has a reason for what happens in our lives, even the hard things.

Sometimes just taking a step back and remembering that God allows things for a reason. And there is no wasted pain when we belong to Christ. 

Listener question of the week:

“What is one thing that you can attribute to a long happy marriage?” was the question of the week sent by Judith. 

For Jen and AJ to have long and hopefully happy and healthy marriages is to know that marriage is not just about us. It's not about feeling good every day. Because we're human beings that are definitely fallible. It's also okay to have separate interests at times, to manage your expectations, and the fact that your marriage is a reflection of the gospel was also part of the answer. Oh, and have separate tubes of toothpaste. LOL.

“Always remember that love is a choice “

Thank you for sending in these questions. If you have a question for us, we’d love to answer it!  It can be super silly or a little bit deeper. It doesn't matter! Email us at hello@thesojoacademy.com.

Challenge of the week

For this week's challenge, we want you to read Hannah’s story and think about your own life.

If you are thinking to yourself, “I don't really know if I have faith to act and to be obedient”, here's the great news:  faith itself is a gift from God.  

You've been saved through faith. This is not your own doing, it is a gift of God.

So you can be confident in that gift and you can take that faith and go through very practical disciplines, prayer, reading the Bible, being in community with other believers to stand on that faith. 

We don't have to have super-sized, monumental, spiritual,  amounts of faith for it to work. A mustard seed size is all we need. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be a little bit of genuine faith in our trustworthy God.