Stopping to Think

  Text       28        “And it shall come to pass afterward,        that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;                    your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,        your old men shall dream dreams,        and your young men shall see visions.              29       Even on the male and female servants        in those days I will pour out my Spirit.  30 “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. 32 And it shall come to pass that everyone ...

"For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the LORD. As long as he lives, he is lent to the LORD." And he worshiped the LORD there.    1 Samuel 1:27-28 Have you ever received a gift, and being so overjoyed with that gift, turned and given it away? The Setting That seems to be how the book of 1 Samuel, found in the Old Testament of the Bible, begins. We meet in these opening pages a woman named Hannah. She is the wife of a man named Elihu-but she isn't his only wife. She has what v6  refers to as a rival, her husband's other wife, Peninnah. And beyond being her rival, Peninnah is prodigiously gifted in what would have been the measure of a woman some 3100 years ago: she's very able to bear children. Hannah, on the other hand, is barren.  This causes Hannah great distress, for although her husband loves her ( v5 ), one imagines that love has a hard time holding up in the face of how fruitful his...