Mar. 22 - 1 Samuel 1-7

I know we usually use Sunday as our "day of rest" from the Bible blog, but there was too much in yesterday's reading to skip over.  So today's post is actually going to briefly cover 1 Samuel 1-7.
Samuel was born to Hannah, who was barren.  She prayed to the Lord to give her a family saying she would give that child to the Lord for the rest of his life.  That child was Samuel.  Hannah gave him up to the Lord and ended up giving birth to 3 sons and 2 daughters.  Eli was ruling the Israelites at the time and was a follower of the Lord.  His sons, however, were not.  The Lord confronted Eli and let him know that He would be kind to Israel, but would not be kind to Eli's sons and family.  We learn later in the reading that both of his sons were killed on the same day during a war with the Israelites. 
In the meantime, Samuel is living in the temple with Eli and hears a voice.  He repeatedly goes in to Eli to see what he needs, but comes to realize that the Lord is calling him.  Eli listens and hears God speaking to him about the plans he has against Eli's family. 
Israel goes out to fight the Philistines and the Philistines won, killing about 4000 Israelite men.  The Israelites didn't understand why the Lord allowed the Philistines to defeat them and decided to take the ark of the Lord out of Israel with them to protect them.  Things didn't go quite as they had planned.  30,000 Israelite soldiers were killed and the ark of the Lord was captured.  This is also when Eli's two sons were killed.  When Eli heard of this, he himself died from the shock of it all - he fell over in disbelief and broke his neck.  During the time that the ark of the Lord was out of Israel, it brought tumors and rats among all the people that were in contact with it.  Finally, it was decided that the ark of the Lord should be returned to Israel.  The Philistines got rid of their false idols, made a guilt offering out of gold, and sent some cows with the ark of the Lord back to Israel.  Everyone rejoiced at it's return.  At this time, Samuel was serving the Israelite community.  The Philistine's again planned to attack the Israelites and the people begged Samuel to pray to the Lord and ask for His mercy.  Samuel did this and the Lord answered.  Just as the Philistines were ready to attack, the Lord sent such a panic with a huge crash of thunder that the Philistines rebuked.  Throughout Samuel's entire life, the Lord was against the Philistine's. 
Lots of information in the past two days.  Another great lesson in making sure we are listening to what God is telling us, not just brushing it off as some little thing nagging at us.  Also, sometimes it is necessary to make sacrifices in life that are to honor God.  That's not to say we need to offer up our children to Him (although they are technically His anyway), but it's a good lesson to remember when we think we could never give something up.  Hannah gave up her son.  We could be able to give a little bit up too!