Elkanah and Hannah’s lives and marriage were based on their trust in God.
1 Samuel 1:21-28
21 When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, 22 Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always.”
23 “Do what seems best to you,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the Lord make good his word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.
24 After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. 25 When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, 26 and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. 27 I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.
How easy is it to trust? For example, do you trust the person who says, ‘I promise I will do it’, or ‘I will take care of it for you’?
For those of us who are parents, trusting others is very hard when it comes to our children. Watching parents on the first day of preschool gives us a glimpse of the struggle it is to hand over trust to someone else. It is often us, as parents, who are more distressed than our little ones to wave and say goodbye at the classroom door.
The passage above gives us a glimpse of an incredible couple, Hannah and Elkanah who show amazing trust of each other and of God.
How many husbands would genuinely, without conflict or criticism, say to their wives “Do what seems best to you”? Elkanah trusted Hannah’s judgement regarding the promise she had made to the Lord.
With even more admiration, we read how this couple fulfilled this promise to God by leaving their precious son Samuel with the priest Eli.
This was not like a preschool drop off for a few hours, where a phone call can get you back in 15 minutes, and where the teacher has received special training in child care. This was for good; their little boy was not ever going to come back home. It was to a faraway place they only visited once a year, and he was left in the care of a man who probably did not have much experience caring for young children.
It is thanks to this couple’s amazing trust in God that Samuel goes on to serve God, and reveal the very beginning of God’s plans for the ultimate king his people are waiting for – Jesus.
This is such a challenge to us to also trust. Trust that the words we read in the bible are from God, trust that God hears every word that we pray, trust the voice of the Holy Spirit prompting inside us, trust those around us that are Christ’s followers including our spouses, and, ultimately, to trust that Jesus has a plan for us into eternity.
Head: What situations do you have to trust God or others in?
Heart: Do you find it difficult to trust God? – why or why not?
Hands: Follow Elkanah’s example in your own life today trusting, avoiding conflict and following God’s plan
Prayer: Dear Lord, Hannah and Elkanah were ordinary folk who struggled with things just like we do. They, however, set us such an amazing example of trusting you and trusting each other. Please help us trust our lives into your care as they did. In Jesus name we pray, Amen
A song to listen to: In God We Trust
Hayley Alexander – Creek Road Presbyterian Church- Carina
