muses

I’ve decided that I would finally write the review on the chapter of Hannah after reading John Piper’s message on Don’t Waste Your Womanhood. At the risk of oversimplifying his message, Dr Piper talked of womanhood being made for the glory of Christ. Hannah’s womanhood in being a mother and a nurturer exalted God’s purpose in her life.

Barrenness was the thorn in Hannah’s flesh. As much as she loved her husband, and he loved her, her childlessness was her anguish. Her rival, her husband’s second wife goaded her for her inability to have children. Unlike Sarah and Rachel who took things into their own hands and had their maidservants conceive children by their husbands on their behalf, Hannah’s grief was expressed through her tears and constant prayers. And indeed, the gracious Lord showed favour to Hannah and granted her prayer to have one son who would be given to the Lord (1 Sam 1:11). Her dedication of her son Samuel to God’s service was probably motivated by the fact that the two sons of Eli the Priest were wicked and committed to their own ways, even though they were serving in the house of the Lord. Even though God made no promise of giving her another child after Samuel, Hannah kept to her word in consecrating her son and sent him to live and serve in the temple of God after the tender age of three. Did she love her son? You bet, but she loved her Lord even more. When she brought her song of praise to God as she brought Samuel to the temple, it echoed the hopes of the other extraordinary women: full of faith and Messianic expectations for the arrival of the Chosen One.

Took a break from blogging for a month now, and it wasn’t intentional. I told myself that I would blog my thoughts after reading Christian literature so that I would synthesise the ideas from the books and give them more thoughts. And no, it wasn’t because I stopped reading. In fact, I’ve finished Philip Yancey’s Prayer and is almost done with Twelve Extraordinary Women. I’m raring to start The Call to Joy and Pain by Ajith Fernando.

A few strange reasons stopped me from blogging. One, I was stuck at writing about the chapter on Hannah from Twelve Extraordinary Women. Seriously, I find it so hard to relate to her. This lady’s life seemed to be all about waiting for a child that didn’t come. But I would try, to try writing about the chapter and this lady that John MacArthur deemed worthy to mention in this book. Then, for the book Prayer – there’s so many thoughts, and before I could take time to blog one chapter, I found myself rushing into the next chapter. Before you know it, I was done with the book. So, I don’t know whether I should re-read the book now, or to just move on to another. Well, I have, and interestingly, it’s a very thin paperback called Effective Prayer by J Oswald Sanders. Yes, it’s another book on prayer, made up of one page chapters on prayer, not unlike a daily devotional. But at the same time, God seemed to be speaking through His word, events, circumstances and books on the same issues. I will save this for another blog entry…