Doing Our Part - One Year Devotions for Women

Samuel did not yet know the LORD because he had never had a message from the LORD before. - 1  Samuel 3:7

Samuel had grown up in the Tabernacle, but that did not guarantee a relationship with God. Even when we raise children who know of God, in the end the Lord has to call, and each child had to respond. So just how can parents set the stage for this divine confrontation?

First, we can pray. Hannah prayed for her little boy before he even existed. She prayed that her boy would “belong to the Lord his whole life” (1 Samuel 1:28). Second, we can provide an environment where our children can meet God. Hannah placed Samuel into Eli’s care to teach him the ways of God. Eli gave him tasks to do in the Tabernacle and began to train him to listen for the Lord’s voice.

Can we have any assurance that God will call our children to himself? I believe we can. We can do our part with confidence. We can keep our children “near the Ark” by making sure they know God’s rules. We can keep our children in church, much as Hannah dedicated Samuel to the Tabernacle. Our children can be taught to serve and help as part of Christ’s body (1 Samuel 2:18). And we can keep them in our prayers. Doing our part is doing everything we can to make sure, as Hannah did, that our children grow up “in the presence of the Lord” (1 Samuel 2:21). Then we let them go. After that, it’s up to God and them!

For Further Study: 1 Samuel 3:7

Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Women, Copyright ©2000 by Jill Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

For more from Jill Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.

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