Worship and Watch

 DEVOTION

JUDGES

WORSHIP AND WATCH

1 Samuel 1:19-28

19 Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the LORD and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. 20 So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, "Because I asked the LORD for him." 21 When the man Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the LORD and to fulfill his vow, 22 Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, "After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the LORD, and he will live there always." 23 "Do what seems best to you," Elkanah her husband told her. "Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the LORD make good his word." So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him. 24 After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh. 25 When they had slaughtered the bull, they brought the boy to Eli, 26 and she said to him, "As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. 27 I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD." And he worshiped the LORD there.

NIV

Once again, we are faced with several truths, or little nuggets of gold, within this continued story of Hannah. First, we noticed they were up early in the morning and worshiped the Lord before returning home to Ramah. There is always a good time to worship the Lord; in fact, it has been said our whole lives should be a worship of God. However, after the day begins and we get engaged in our daily activities, we should spend the first moments of our day in full, uninterrupted worship of our Lord. Our days can become so full of many distractions that we might just think we are living as Christians, even reading a portion of scripture each day, but never get around to worshiping the Lord. This is why the early morning is a wonderful time to worship the Lord, before anything else fills our day. The Hebrew word used here for worship means to prostrate, bow down, especially reflective before God. Here again, this could mean taking up a physical position, bowing down, either face down on the floor, or kneeling; however, most importantly, is bowing our heart. No matter our physical limitations that could restrict us from lying face down, or even kneeling, we can bow low our hearts, submitting ourselves, sacrificing ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is our  spiritual worship. Second, we look at the fact that God remembered Hannah. It is not that God would ever forget her, or us, for that matter, but it is a phrase that demonstrates how pleased the Lord was with her spiritual act of worship, her sincere, genuine pouring her soul out before him. His remembering Hannah showed up miraculously, as he had closed her womb, he now opened it. A woman who was not able to conceive did so because of the LORD. We wonder if we put too much faith in the medical profession, even thinking they are the hand of God at work fixing some problem with our bodies, rather than spending time pouring out our souls before the Lord, seeking our needs directly from his hand. Of course, Hannah’s husband lay with her as a normal method used to conceive another life. But it was her womb going from closed to open that happened only through the direct intervention of the LORD. Let us worship first, foremost, and see what God can do. We might sum it up with worship and watch.