Three Handy Hints from Hannah

James Cathcart December 08, 2025 2 0

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1 Samuel 1: 20-28 (NIVUK)

20 So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, ‘Because I asked the Lord for him.’

21 When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfil 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,’ her husband Elkanah 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 the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, 26 and she said to him, ‘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 shall be given over to the Lord.’ And he worshipped the Lord there.

In our reading Hannah is finding room for Samuel to flourish as a prophet. True flourishing takes time and room… What are we finding room for in Advent to help ourselves and others flourish?

Do you want to nurture a new friendship or cultivate an old one? Do you want to discover a new purpose or calling or clarify an existing one? 

Here’s Hannah’s Handy Hints for Flourishing this Advent:

1) Make a plan. Elkanah’s away out the door dragging the family with him and Hannah cries out: “Haud the bus!” This Advent what is a routine, or a habit, or a tradition (!) that you could ‘break’ to find time for something else?

2) Put in the time! This one verse (23) skips over a lot of ground but here is the practical hard work of introducing a human being to the world. I still vividly remember giving my daughter her first solid food to munch and marvelling that for the first time we were introducing something completely new to the system. This Advent where could you roll up your sleeves and put in the work? Weaning is a long, mysterious and messy process full of stop-starts — so don’t pick something because it’s easy, pick something because it’s hard! Pick something so hard it has no choice but to be rewarding!

3) Get a three year old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine. Now in case you’re Christmas delivery slot is already booked and Tesco is all out of three year old bulls, let’s think of a pivot. What could you ‘offer up’ this Advent? While a world of sacrificial livestock and ephahs feels strange and unfamiliar it somehow taps into a very relatable truth: Giving away stuff can be very good for you. Our economy is built on the idea that the chief object of humanity is to obtain stuff (what we do with the stuff afterwards is immaterial, unlike the stuff itself which is very material). So minimalism is fine as long as you get magazines on minimalism, minimalistic objet to clutter your coffee table, and a swathe of minimalistic gadgets to save you time so that you can sign up for the minimalist backer-only newsletter and podcast — with its cutting edge reviews of the latest in minimalism… But weirdly the momentarily brain lift we get from buying something new is remarkably similar (but shorter lasting) than the brain kick we get from letting go. Remember we often grab on to things out of fear and let go of them out of love. What could you give away this Advent, dedicate to God’s plan?

4) Let go.

Prayer:

Help us Lord

to plan for flourishing

to put in the hard work of flourishing

and to let go in love.

Amen.