If we study the Book of 1 Samuel, we will be able to learn about the background of Samuel. He is the son of Elkanah and Hannah. The Bible said the Lord closed her womb. Hannah suffered from the fact that Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah had children and she had none. Year after year, Hannah did not have any children. Hannah went up to the house of the Lord and cried out to him and made a vow that if the Lord would give her a son, she will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life (1 Samuel 1:10-11).

She kept praying to the Lord about this. Eli, the priest of the temple of God, thought she was drunk, as when she prayed, she was praying in her heart. Her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. Hannah revealed that she was just pouring out her soul to the Lord. Eli prophesied that the God of Israel would grant her what she asked for. After this encounter, she went away, ate something, and her face was no longer downcast. She knew by faith that God will grant her the desire to have a son. Early morning, she arose and worshipped the Lord. The Lord remembered her prayer and she conceived of a son, whom she named Samuel. Samuel’s conception was an answer to Hannah’s prayer.

Rejecting pressure will abort your diamond. You have to go through something in order to arrive at something. When you reject the pressure, you abort our ability to form as the diamond. That’s

why we have to know how to welcome pressure because it’s the pressure that turns the coal into diamond.
Whenever there’s pressure, human nature will always want to run from it, but you can embrace it, even as Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane. He said, “not my will, nevertheless, but let thy will be done.” Your mentor is your tormentor, because there has to be pressure.

Proper development needs proper alignment
In order for you to develop properly, you have to be aligned properly. It is the key to proper development because the mentor or the master is the person that is like person that prunes the gardens. It is the job of the mentor to prune, to cut, to prepare, to build the disciples. So, if the disciple is ready, then the master can begin to develop and prune away the things that are not necessary for the mentor. One of the things that you’re going to find is that the mentor is in your life to shave off the rough edges.

I always felt that once the master, the mentor comes into life of the disciple, there’s a child that is born and that is trust but also a truth that’s birth because there has to be total trust and has to be total truth and if there has been none, then this master can’t pour into the life of the disciple efficiently if he doesn’t trust them.