Every answered prayer is both a blessing and a burden, God’s supply and a stewardship of it.
The time came when Hannah must keep her promise as the Lord had kept His. How those years must have flown! Was this vulnerable child ready for the rigors of Eli’s household? Was it three years that “Hannah did not go up, for she said to her husband, ‘Not until the child is weaned; then I will take him, that he may appear before the Lord and remain there forever’” (1 Sam 1:22)? It seems so, for “she took him up with her, with three bulls, one ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord in Shiloh” (v 24). The ephah would cover three fine flour offerings of three-tenths each, as would the contents of her wineskin (Num 15:8-10). Thus she prepared one complete offering for each year she had been absent from the family’s annual Shiloh visit. With what tender feeling we read, “and the child was young” (1 Sam 1:24), yet she could not keep him. He was the Lord’s! So she makes the following two statements to old Eli. First, “For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition which I asked [Heb, shaw-el’] of Him” (v 27). She concludes, “Therefore I also have lent [Heb, shaw-el’] him to the Lord; as long as he lives he shall be lent [Heb, shaw-el’] to the Lord” (v 28). Samuel’s name means “asked of God.” Hannah’s name means “given by God.” It’s as if she’s a living prayer and Samuel the living answer from the Lord. How fittingly the chapter concludes: “So they worshiped the Lord there” (v 28). Their worship ascends to the Source of all blessing, mingling with the sweet savor offering from the altar. The scene reminds me of the words of the psalmist: “Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice” (Ps 141:2). May our lives be living prayers as well.