Is it your parents' fault?

Little Peter has requested to move on to 1 Samuel in our bedtime readings. We’ve finished Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Judges, and Ruth in the last year. I was secretly excited. I love the story of David…and before him Hannah. Hannah has been  close to my heart the last couple years. I’m so excited to share God’s stories of faithfulness and devotion,  and lessons of the consequences of sin as well, that are tucked into 1 and 2 Samuel with my children!



 From Samuel’s example alone  we can learn so much.

(quoted from Beth Moore)



~We cannot use even the worst of our leaders’(parents etc) failures as excuses before God for lives of negligence and compromise. Despite the HORRID example of Eli’s sons, Samuel chose a life of unparalleled faithfulness to God.



~ Parents, like Hannah, do a tremendous service to their children when they rear them to worship and adore God and God alone. Hannah could not train Samuel to depend on her because she wouldn’t be there. As we witness his life, we see Samuel  never confused God and man.

Samuel learned his faith from his mother-a woman whose faithfulness evidenced her faith, a woman with compulsory faith on her lips



19 Then they rose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD, and returned and came to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. 20 So it came to pass in the process of time that Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, "Because I have asked for him from the LORD."

21 Now the man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer to the LORD the yearly sacrifice and his vow. 22 But 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."

23 So Elkanah her husband said to her, "Do what seems best to you; wait until you have weaned him. Only let the LORD establish His word." Then the woman stayed and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

24 Now when she had weaned him, 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. And the child was young. 25 Then they slaughtered a bull, and brought the child to Eli. 26 And she said, "O my lord! As your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood by you here, praying to the LORD. 27 For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition which I asked of Him. 28 Therefore I also have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives he shall be lent to the LORD." So they worshiped the LORD there.