Why should you follow Hannah's example with your most precious possessions today?  With your children, or family, or future, or vocation, or dreams?  The simple answer is that God can do more with your child than you can.  The more your children are submitted to him, the more he can lead and bless and use them.  Samuel is proof.

Hannah committed her unborn child to be a Nazirite.  These were a kind of monks or nuns of ancient Israel.  Numbers 6 describes their four-fold commitment: abstain from all alcohol and products of the vine, keep the hair and beard uncut, refuse to touch a dead body, and refuse all unclean food. 

Some people kept this vow for 30, 60, or 100 days.  Samson and John the Baptist were Nazirites; the Apostle Paul took a Nazirite vow for a period of time; and Samuel was made a Nazirite for life by Hannah.

What's more, she dedicated him to live and work at the tabernacle.  She would give him when he was "weaned" (v. 21), three years of age according to Hebrew tradition.  He would then serve the Lord for the rest of his life.  Levites served from the age of 25 to 50 (Numbers 8:24-25), and priests in various rotations, but Samuel would spend every day of every year in the service of God.  From the time he was three, Hannah would see him only when she came to the tabernacle for worship.

And what did God do with this child given so totally to him?

Samuel would become the last of the judges, the rulers of Israel before the kings.  He would become Israel's first prophet, and one of the greatest of the prophets.  He would choose and anoint Israel's first two kings.  God would use him to lead the nation, through which he would one day bring another Son to be our Savior and Lord.

Because Hannah prayed for her child, dedicated him to God, and left the results in the Lord's hands, our lives have been affected by her commitment.  And all who follow us, to the end of time.

Hannah's story is in the Bible to model this principle: when we dedicate ourselves and our families to God, he does more with them than we can.  He has a plan to prosper and not harm them, to give them hope and a future.  His will is good, pleasing, and perfect.

But you already knew all that.  You knew that God blesses all we submit to him, that he redeems all it costs us to follow him.  But it's hard to believe that when Samuel is your child.  When God wants something you don't want to give.  When the price you must pay to be sacrificially faithful to God doesn't seem worth it at the time.

For some of us, that commitment involves our children.  There are times when we must choose between their souls and their social status, between their Father and their friends.  When they are tempted by popularity at the cost of character and you must take a tough stand.  When they are living one way at church and another way at school and you must step in.  If you want your children to please God, there will be times when they cannot please this culture.  And you'll have a choice to make.

Your Samuel may not be a child.  It may be a dream, an ambition, a job, status, something you own or want.  Jesus wants to be Lord of that, and you know that he will bless what you give him.  But you don't want to.  You're secretly afraid that he won't let you have what you want, or bless your plans, or fulfill your dreams.

Why is that?  We can give God our discretionary time or income or involvement, but why is it so hard for us to surrender what we value most to him?  Why are there so few Hannahs today?

Some of us don't really trust him.  We're afraid that he won't let us have what we want, or bless our plans, or fulfill our dreams.  When I first heard the gospel I refused to trust in Jesus.  I was afraid that he would make my life miserable.  I pictured him as an angry judge, a kind of Cosmic Killjoy, a vengeful deity who hated sin and didn't much like sinners.  It's hard to surrender your dreams to a God like that.

It's hard for us to trust what we can see to Someone we can't.  Your career is real; your friends are real; your plans and dreams are real.  But God is Spirit (John 4:24).  You cannot prove his existence or predict his behavior.  You have no proof that he will do what you want him to do with the Samuel you entrust to him.  I'm the same way. 

It's far easier to please you sitting in this Sanctuary than to please the God I cannot see or prove today.  You have skin on.  Your affirmation is tangible and real.  It's hard to trust the Samuel I can see to the God I cannot.

Here's my question: what more can God do to prove himself to you than he has done?

He created the heavens and the earth, and you to dwell in them.  Then he entered the human race he made when his Son took on flesh.  He proved his Son's compassion on the cross and his divinity in the resurrection.  He used Jesus' first followers to start the mightiest spiritual movement in history.  What can he do to prove himself to you today?

He could appear to you in the flesh, but you might later question your senses and wonder if you were hallucinating.  He could answer your prayers with a divine miracle, but you could wonder if the work really was his.  A relationship with God, like all relationships, is self-validating.  You cannot prove a friendship until you trust it.  You cannot prove that God can be trusted with your Samuel until you trust him with your Samuel.

So here's my challenge: try his Lordship this week.  Choose to surrender whatever is close to your heart today, and see what he does with it.  Abstain this week from the sin which tempts you away from God, and experience the sense of integrity and holiness which will result. 

Put him in charge of your career this week and watch him lead you.  Ask him to parent your child this week and experience the wisdom, patience, and hope only God can give.  Choose to be Hannah, and you will know that he is God.