While reading through the Old Testament book of Judges recently, I was struck by the reaction of a man called Manoah to the news that his wife was to have a baby. The news had come in a very unusual way.
It wasn't that his previously barren wife had started to feel sick or completed a pregnancy test. The angel of the Lord had come to her with the message that at last she would bear a child to her husband.
And what was Manoah's reaction? Doubtless he was delighted, but it wasn't gratitude that dominated his urgent prayer to God. He prayed: 'O Lord, I beg you, let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born' (Judges 13.8).
