1 Samuel 1:11

Give him unto the Lord. Hannah’s acceptance of God’s spiritual gift to her through the feast impelled her plea for a more tangible gift — a son — promising that such a gift would be immediately returned to the Lord, holy and consecrated to Him. Perhaps God had waited long for such a surrender; He could have opened her womb before, but was she ready to bear the responsibility?

Worldly wisdom teaches that prayer is not essential, that there can be no real answer to prayer, that this would violate natural law, and that miracles just cannot be. It is part of God’s plan to grant, in answer to the prayer of faith, that which He would not otherwise bestow (GC 525). Why? Because it is part of Heaven’s plan that man voluntarily surrender as fully to the infilling and outworking of the Holy Spirit as did Christ when He was here on earth. So far as God was concerned it was not necessary for Abraham to wait 25 years for the fulfilling of the divine covenant. When the patriarch came to the place where he could enter fully into Heaven’s plan for him, God was able to turn all past failures into steppingstones of blessing. So it was with Hannah.

But God did not speak to her through an angel; He used the appointed medium of the priesthood, even though it was imperfect and in need of reformation. God recognized the fact that Hannah’s natural desire for offspring had finally been absorbed in a passion for devoting the most precious of gifts to Him, and He answered her petition through Eli.