Brings Promises to Give the Child Up.
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Is that right?
Is that us?
Looking away,
for something better
than God’s Blessings?
First Samuel 1:11
She made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.”
.
Luke 1:57-58
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
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Words of Grace for Today –
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God’s Grace Flows to all people, though it seems to flow to some more than others.
So when women of old were childless, bearing children the utmost mark of being blessed (things have changed, eh?), it was often that women, thirsty for recognition by their families and communities, would promise all sorts of things to God if God would give them a son (and sons were the only children that seem to mark the mother as blessed, too – and that’s certainly changed, thankfully!)
The most extreme sacrifice would be to give up the child so that the child would serve God his life-long.
Something seems off here.
Did the woman want a son to raise and love?
Or did the woman making such a promise want first of all to appear to be blessed in other people’s eyes, in their husband’s eyes? The son then was really not important?
Or was it the ultimate sacrifice, offered in exchange for being blessed?
Does God work that way?
If I sacrifice what I want most will God give it to me so I can give it away?
Or
is it not that God already gives us blessings upon blessings and asks in return that we give them away to other people to enjoy the blessings, and thus learn to give God thanks?!
Was not John a great gift to Elizabeth, in her late years? And was John not dedicated to serving God, and did not John lose his life in that service? And did not John live a blessed life, if a difficult life?
Being blessed is certainly no guarantee of an easy life.
It would, according to biblical accounts, be exactly the opposite. Being blessed is a guarantee that challenges, trials, and suffering will come our way.
So do you want to be blessed this day?
Of course, since the other alternative is to be cursed, which may be an easy life, but a useless life.
Which is really not living at all.
So we pray:
Bless us God, each day.
Walk with us through the challenges ahead.