A Mother’s Treasure

1 Samuel 1:9-11, 24b-28 – “After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. 10 She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. 11 And she vowed a vow and said, ‘O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.’….And the child was young. 25 Then they slaughtered the bull, and they brought the child to Eli. 26 And she said, ‘Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord. 27 For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. 28 Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.’  And he worshiped the Lord there.”

Seeing that it is Mother’s Day, it is quite appropriate that we reflect on some of the mothers in the Bible and see what we can learn from their examples.  One mother whose life we could look into is Sarah, the wife of Abraham and the ninety-one year old mother of Isaac.  From her life we can learn about patience, faith, and waiting on God’s timing.  Another mother we can learn from is Mary, the mother of Jesus, who definitely could teach us many lessons which range from humility to obedience.  But one of my favorite mothers in the Bible is Hannah, the mother of Samuel, because when we look at her life, we don’t only learn about faith and obedience, but we see a mother who has the strength to do something any parent would have a difficult time doing – letting go of their child.

To get a full understanding of Hannah’s life, one should read 1 Samuel 1; but in summary, Hannah was one of the two wives of Elkanah.  Unfortunately, in a time when having children indicated being blessed by God, she was unable to have any kids, although she was still dearly beloved by her husband.  Due to this problem, Elkanah’s other wife constantly gave Hannah grief, mocking her for being unable to have any children.  One day, while at the house of the Lord (where our passage begins today), Hannah poured out her heart to God, asking Him to give her a son, who she would then give back to the Lord for His service.  This request was granted to her, and by the next year, she had her son, Samuel.  Now, if these same circumstances happened to any other parent, I am almost certain that at least 95% of them would no longer keep the promise; instead, they would just find a way to worm themselves out of their oath.  But Hannah does something else completely – she gives up her son.  At this time, Samuel would have been her only son, her only child, her only proof of God’s blessing, and she was giving it up to the Lord.  She let her one treasure be offered to the Lord with no clue whether she would ever be given another one.  She was basically giving her all to the Lord.  Sounds kind of like Abraham and Isaac’s story right? (Genesis 22)

What I admire about what Hannah did in this passage was that she was willing to give up her one treasure to the Lord.  She literally was doing what each and every person has a difficult time doing, giving up our desires to God.  We can learn from Hannah, in that, surely, there are things in our lives, maybe talents, family, friends that we have been holding back from God, things that we may be afraid that if we gave them up, God would never return or would be unable to take care of.  We must like Hannah first realize two things:

#1.  All things belong to God in the first place, for He was the One who gave it to us.  Hannah was given Samuel by the Lord after pleading with Him, not because of something special she had done.  Whatever blessings we have in our lives do not originate from something we did, but from God’s grace and love to us.  For what does a sinner deserve but death, yet God gave us life and so much more.

#2.  God will take care of whatever we give to Him more than we can take care of it ourselves.  Hannah like every parent was certainly worried for her son, yet she knew that the Lord would take care of Samuel and would be a better Father to him then she could be a mother; so instead of letting her fear paralyze her, she allowed her faith to push her towards obedience.  God will watch over whatever it is you are afraid of giving Him.  Sometimes, we are afraid to take the step into ministry or serving the Lord, because we fear for our family.  Don’t worry.  If God has called you to serve Him in that area, God will take care of your family too.

Second, we must like Hannah obey and give it up to Him.  God loves us more than we can ever imagine, and because of His love, He also cares for the things we care about.  Our God is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God, how can we even think that He wouldn’t be able to take care of it?  As disciples, we have chosen to not only make Jesus Christ our Savior but our Lord as well, that means all things in our lives should be in submission to Him.  Let us not hold back our treasures.  Let us not hold back our desires.  Let us not hold back even that one thing.  Instead, like Hannah, let us give it all up to the Lord, knowing that He will take care of it better than we can ourselves.