Message: In 1 Samuel 1 There was a woman named Hannah who was barren. She was deeply anguished over it and when she came to the temple with her sacrifice to pray she vowed to God that if he would give her a child she would give him back to the Lord permanently. She prayed so emotionally that the priest thought she was drunk. She explained herself and he blessed her offering of prayer and sacrifice and said “let it be according to what you have asked.” Hannah left her anguish there and a short time later she conceived. As promised, as soon as the baby was weaned from nursing she brought him to the temple to live and serve permanently. Reading this is super odd because we can’t fathom dropping off our children at the church and I’m pretty sure they would kindly ask us to take our children home with us. What I really got out of this was that she asked God for a promise and when he gave it to her she understood that he belonged to God. I feel like we struggle with that because we have family members, finances and all kinds of promises in our hands that we believe belong to us. When we believe they belong to us we no longer are willing to give up control of these things. We want to dictate how it will be used, how much and for what purpose. If we don’t understand that our children, husbands, finances and our very own lives belong to God we will fight God for control and then be angry at him for not submitting to our plans. Something that I constantly have to check myself in is the way I’m praying. Sometimes I listen to myself and realize I’m trying to give God some good ideas of how he should handle my situations and what he really wants is for me to surrender it and submit to his plan for it. When I feel myself pulling that direction I have to stop and ask God to help me to cooperate with what he is already working out. This story was such an important reminder to me that everything in my life belongs to God. We manage things and should do so responsibly but we have to remember that the decisions are not ours to make. They belong to God.
