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REFLECTION

“A vow fulfilled” is the theme for our reflection. A “vow fulfilled” means successfully carrying out a solemn promise, obligation, or commitment made to God or another person. We shall reflect on the fact that we must have a parental vow of offering our children as living sacrifices unto the Lord, with the hope that they will become servants of God and be useful to humanity.

Beloved in the Lord, Hannah and Elkanah’s example of offering their son, Samuel, to God as a vow for him to serve the Lord and consequently fulfilling that vow, is a great example for us to follow as parents. Hannah, with the consent and support of her husband, said, “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,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the LORD make good his word.” (1 Samuel 1:22-23). After the child had been weaned, Hannah took him to Shiloh to offer sacrifice and to fulfil her vow. She said to Eli, the priest, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, 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 worshipped the LORD there. (1 Samuel 1:26-28). We are admonished to fulfil our vows when Moses said to the Israelites, “…if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty. 23 Whatever your lips utter, you must be sure to do, because you made your vow freely to the LORD your God with your own mouth.” (Deuteronomy 23:22-23). Making a vow shows one’s commitment to God; hence, making a vow is good, but we must make vows that we can fulfil to the glory of God. We must not make vows to impress other worshippers; the vows must be personal and must be doable. Dear friend in the Christ, though in the 21st century we may not have the practice of placing our children under the custody of a priest or pastor to serve in the house of the Lord for his whole life, however, like Hannah and Elkanah we must make a vow to God to offer our children as living sacrifices to God to worship Him all days of their lives.

Apart from fulfilling our vows to God by offering our children to Him through a naming and dedication ceremony, we owe our children that divine obligation to train or instruct them in the way of the Lord. Christian parents must become the first priests or pastors to nurture and give divine instruction to their children. It is for this reason we are admonished in Proverbs 22:6, “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. Training the children in the way they should go includes following the perfect example of Christ as parents, so that we can raise spiritually and morally sound children whose foundation is built on prayer and the Bible. Making a parental vow of offering our children to God is a deliberate or intentional act. It is a journey of consistency. We must not only offer the children with our lips and rest on our oars, as some parents do. They dedicate their children and have them christened with Biblical or Christian names, but fail to remain consistent with the divine duty of nurturing or training their children. Most children receive their spiritual and moral upbringing in the hands of the children’s ministry or the Sunday school. Some do not even care whether the children attend Sunday school or not. They pamper their children by providing them with all the material things of this world except the Bible and its teachings. Some parents even argue that they are not responsible for the child’s spiritual life; if he or she grows, they will choose their preferred religion or faith. Meanwhile, when they wanted children, they prayed to God. Dear friends, Christian parenting is a stewardship responsibility that comes with a divine vow and duty to nurture our children to become servants of the Lord. We shall be held accountable as parents if we fail this divine duty.

In summary, Children are a gift from God, and we have a divine obligation to nurture them if they are given to us by God. We must fulfil this vow not to God alone but for the spiritual and moral edification of our children and for more blessings to be bestowed on us.

PRAYER

May the Holy Spirit strengthen us to fulfil our vows. Amen.