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Scripture from Judges 13 (CSB)

“…Please Lord, teach us what we should do…”

There is an often-missed, but wondrous event that sets an Old Testament hero’s life story in motion, beginning in Judges 14. But today, it’s not about him. It’s about his faithful parents. Let’s step back to the beginning.

Manoah and his wife were faithfully following God during a time when the nation of Israel had turned its back on God.

“…so, the Lord handed them over to the Philistines forty years.”

But God saw the faithfulness of this couple, and He chose to use them in His plan for Israel’s future redemption. He would bless them by giving them a son, Samson.

God always does things in such a breathtaking way. Not everything He does is filled with thunder and brilliant light. Often, God’s magnificence is displayed in tender beauty. This story combines both marvels.

The woman tells her husband, “A man of God came to me. He looked like the awe-inspiring angel of God. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name…He said to me, ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son…”

Manoah’s response was exactly what a true believer’s response should have been.

“Manoah prayed to the Lord”

No matter what we face in this life, good or bad, our conversation with God should be like that: immediate. Telling God everything is what draws us even closer into a deeply rich relationship with our Savior.

Manoah was humble in his prayer. He didn’t know what to think. But He knew that God had a plan.

 “Please, Lord, let the man of God you sent come again to us and teach us what we should do for the boy who will be born.”

This story has such a natural flow of how God deals with faithful hearts. Look at God’s response to Manoah’s prayer.

“God listened to Manoah”

God hears you, too, when you pray from faith and from a pure heart devoted to God’s will.

“…the angel of God came again to the woman. She was sitting in the field, and her husband, Manoah, was not with her. The woman ran quickly to her husband and told him, “The man who came to me the other day has just come back!”

Manoah asked Him, ““Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” “I am,” he said.”

Then Manoah said to him, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your words come true?” “Why do you ask my name,” the angel of the Lord asked him, “since it is beyond understanding?”

Get the awesome and majestic way that God showed Himself:

Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord, who did something miraculous while Manoah and his wife were watching. When the flame went up from the altar to the sky, the angel of the Lord went up in its flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell face down on the ground. The angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the angel of the Lord.

Now here is the quiet and gentle way that God showed His breathtaking love for fragile man:

“We’re certainly going to die,” he said to his wife, “because we have seen God!”

But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had intended to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us, and he would not have shown us all these things or spoken to us like this.”

You see, God’s grace towards us accepts us just as we are when we come in obedient faith and reverence to the throne of God, because He loves us. He never harms us.

Share the Good News in your world!

Isaiah 52:7

Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.