The Vow
In I Samuel 1 Hannah was a woman deeply in despair for what her heart long for, “a male child.” Hannah was barren while Peninnah was fruitful. Peninnah would provoke Hannah because she was unable to conceive and this caused Hannah great distress.
Has that ever happened to you? Has there ever been a deep longing for a hearts’ desire, a promotion, better job, marriage, healing, child that has gone astray, get out of debt, etc.? No matter how much you have prayed nothing has happened and what’s worse is that all around you the very thing you are desiring other people are receiving? It’s like they are making sure that you are able to hear about and/or see it. I Samuel 1:7, “It happened year after year, whenever she went up to the House of the Lord, Peninnah provoked her; so she wept and would not eat. Then you understand how Hannah felt. Rejected, frustrated, angry, feeling hopeless but she never gave up on her desire, to be a mother.
Yet one year she went and the Lord heard her prayers. She made a vow and promised to give back the child to the Lord if He would “look upon her affliction.” Hannah got pregnant, gave birth to a male, and fulfilled her vow. How can that be, you have prayed for your deepest desire, negotiated with God and now He grants it and you have to give it up not knowing what the future holds. I am quite sure Hannah wondered during the time she was nursing her beautiful baby boy, watching him take his first steps, hearing him call her “mommy” if she could fulfill that vow? But she did because she knew the God she served and that intuition deep down, that voice spoke promises that this would not be it, “Only believe to receive.” And it paid off, once Hannah gave up Samuel, she gave birth to three sons and two daughters.
Hannah is like us, we yearn for a desire that is in our hearts and we negotiate with God making vows, but do we keep our vows? Or once God has blessed us, we forget and live on never fulfilling our end of the bargain. Let’s be like Hannah, keep our vow made to God and give back the very blessing He gave to us, because it is in no better Hands than in the Hands of our Savior.
