1/18/2026

Day 18 

 Hannah’s Relinquishment

1 Samuel 1:9–28; 2:1–10

Hannah’s story brings us face to face with one of the most costly forms of surrender: relinquishing to God the very thing we have begged Him to give. At Shiloh, Hannah wept before the Lord, “deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly” (1 Samuel 1:10). Her barrenness was not a quiet ache but a public wound. Peninnah, her rival, “provoked her grievously to irritate her” year after year (1 Samuel 1:6). Even Elkanah’s love—though sincere—could not heal the pain. Hannah’s longing for a child consumed her.

In that place of anguish, Hannah made a vow that reveals the depth of her faith: “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your servant… and give to Your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life” (1 Samuel 1:11). This was not manipulation or bargaining. This was surrender in advance. Hannah acknowledged that even the desire burning in her womb did not belong to her. It belonged to God.

True surrender does not say, “Give me what I want and I’ll decide what to do with it.” It says, “If You give, I will release.” Hannah’s prayer echoes David’s later confession: “For all things come from You, and of Your own have we given You” (1 Chronicles 29:14). She understood that a gift from God cannot be possessed apart from God.

When Eli misunderstood her silent prayer as drunkenness, Hannah responded with humility and honesty, pouring out her soul (1 Samuel 1:15). After Eli blessed her, Scripture records a quiet miracle: “Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad” (1 Samuel 1:18). Nothing had changed outwardly—but everything had changed inwardly. Peace came not from answered prayer, but from surrendered trust. As Paul would later write, “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

The Lord remembered Hannah (1 Samuel 1:19). She conceived and bore a son and named him Samuel, declaring, “I have asked for him from the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:20). Yet the true test of surrender came years later. After Samuel was weaned, Hannah brought him to the house of the Lord and said, “For this child I prayed… therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:27–28). What she had waited for, she released. What she loved most, she laid on the altar.

This relinquishment did not produce bitterness—it produced worship. Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 2 overflows with praise, declaring God’s sovereignty, holiness, and power to raise the lowly (1 Samuel 2:1–8). Surrender enlarged her vision of God. She trusted Him not only with her womb, but with her future, her legacy, and her heart.

God honored her surrender. Hannah bore five more children (1 Samuel 2:21), and Samuel became the prophet who shaped Israel’s history, anointing kings and calling a nation back to God. What Hannah released into God’s hands multiplied far beyond what she could have protected on her own.

Hannah’s story asks us hard questions: What blessing are you gripping in fear of losing it? What gift has quietly become an idol? Jesus said, “Whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37). Surrender does not diminish love—it purifies it.

What you place in God’s hands may leave your control, but it will never leave His care.