Many mothers have prayed for a child with similar words, but far fewer have given their children back to the Lord with these words. The reality and purpose of heart of this dear woman Hannah is admirable. She understood and wanted to fulfill her role as a mother, but the Lord had shut up her womb. The difficulties and exercises that Hannah went through to obtain a child may well encourage every mother. She dealt with rivalry from her peer Peninnah and the fretting that this produced in her own soul, and, although her husband loved her, he did not understand her need; then Eli the priest was hard on her. None of these adversities kept her from persisting. She went to the Lord in prayer. Her petition was granted when she relinquished having a child to satisfy her own desires and promised to lend the child to the Lord. We see later how the Lord needed that child to witness to and replace the failing priests of Eli’s family.
The Husband, Peer and Priest
The family of Elkanah was a godly family that went up to Shiloh each year. But Hannah’s desire for a child was so intense she could not be happy. This desire to have children was right. To whom could she go with this problem? Elkanah, her husband, had children by his other wife. We are not told how he came to have two wives, but his comment of being better to her than ten sons was very self-centered. Nor was he acting as “heirs together of the grace of life” with Hannah. Yes, he did love her and gave a worthy portion to her, but he could not understand or help her with her sorrow of soul.
To make matters worse, Peninnah, the other wife who had children, provoked her and made life miserable. This provoking made going up to the house of the Lord a difficult thing for Hannah, for she had no children to thank the Lord for as Peninnah did. The best that Hannah could do in this situation was pray to the Lord alone.
It is sad to see Eli the priest sitting on a chair by the temple. He should have been standing and ministering to the needs of the people instead of overindulging himself. He did not have good discernment concerning Hannah, and his family was a dishonor to the Lord. All Israel could see these faults, but none of these circumstances hindered Hannah from going to the Lord’s house to pray. The Lord was still there, and He could answer prayer. When Eli found that she was a godly soul praying to the Lord, he promised her that the Lord would give her the petition she had requested. She believed the word and was no longer sad. Her humble response is beautiful: “Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight.” She treated the answer as an act of the grace of God. “It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace.” This is a sure ground of blessing. We often treat the answers to our prayers as something deserved.
Consecration
The name Hannah means “grace.” She lived up to her name. When the Lord gave her a son, she did not claim the son as her own, but consecrated him to the Lord. This was not any kind of bargain with the Lord because of what He would do or had done, but a voluntary act of lending him to the Lord for His service. Those of us who are parents may well consider this example regarding our children. Do we raise them according to our own desires? or for the Lord?
After Samuel was weaned, the day came to present him to the Lord. We read, “She took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh: and the child was young. And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli” (vss. 24-25). These sacrifices which accompanied the presentation of the child to the priest have a lesson for us. They show that the propitiation Christ made for God is the means by which the child could acceptably be presented to God. The sacrifices presented with the boy made the child worthy to be presented to the Lord. This is the only right basis upon which parents can dedicate their children to God. We may think that the act of consecrating our children to the Lord is worthy enough in itself that they be accepted. And the more a godly parent invests in training and guiding his children without a conscious realization of Christ’s work for and in those children, the more the parent will be snared by considering their children as acceptable to God apart from His grace. We need to see that all is of grace. The sacrifices that Elkanah and Hannah offered while dedicating the child to the Lord prove that the parents laid hold of the principle of grace.
Let me repeat these things from another viewpoint. When we, with sadness, as parents, see that our children do not go on for the Lord, let us not blame the Lord for this. In essence, this would be treating all that we have done as something that should have been acceptable to God. It is to fall from grace as the ground of all blessing. Yes, we are responsible to do all we can to bring up our children for the Lord, but even the best we may do in consecrating our children to the Lord is not sufficient to make them acceptable to God. Realizing these things will keep each of us humble and, at the same time, make us diligent as to our families.
Humility
There is a difference between humility and self-condemnation. When we fail with our children, we ought to examine our ways and own our failures before the Lord. But repentance is more than owning that we have failed in certain areas, it is recognizing that everything about us in the flesh is bad. Condemning ourselves for what we have done is to remain focused on the wrong object. Do we believe that, given a second chance, we will do better? Let us rather fall back on the grace of God to do what we cannot do, and in humility accept the consequences of our failures, counting on God to bring blessing.
There is also God’s sovereign side of the matter to consider. He has a sovereign plan of blessing for all those He has called, and nothing will hinder His blessing. He is able even to bring good out of evil. King David spoke of this when he realized he had not kept his house in a just and orderly way. He said, “Although my house be not so with God; yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although He make it not to grow” (2 Sam. 23:5). David recognized his failure, but, like Hannah, he held, in faith, to the promises of God to bless his house; at the same time, he was submissive to wait until it was God’s time to make it grow. May the Lord give us this patience of faith in Him.
Worship and Praise
Hannah proceeded to say, “Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of Him: Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And he worshipped the Lord there” (1 Sam. 1:26-2826And she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord. 27For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him: 28Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And he worshipped the Lord there. (1 Samuel 1:26‑28)). The true mother’s heart is satisfied when worship to the Lord is presented by her son, and she is kept in the background. Her son’s worship and service to the Lord is the product of her toiling years of nurturing care with the child for the sake of the Lord.
It is beautiful to see that, after Hannah gave up her son to serve the Lord, she did not return to her former sadness. When she lent her son to the Lord, He filled her heart with communion with Himself. She still had everything for which she had labored. Her heart was not centered only on the son, but on the Lord with her child. Her heart was filled with praise to the Lord and she proclaimed it. Her prayer that follows is really a song of praise. So it is when mothers rise to the height of presenting their children to the Lord as spiritual children for Him, as in this instructive example of Hannah.
D. C. Buchanan