The Next Time You Fall Asleep at Church ...

The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.

 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see,was lying down in his usual place.  The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel.

Samuel answered, “Here I am.”  And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.

 Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”

 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

 A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.  So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

 The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”

Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

 And the Lord said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle.  At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family—from beginning to end.  For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons blasphemed God, and he failed to restrain them. Therefore I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’”

 Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the Lord. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision,  but Eli called him and said, “Samuel, my son.”

Samuel answered, “Here I am.”

 “What was it he said to you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you.”  So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.”

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The book of Judges concludes by illustrating an era of supreme depravity in Israel’s history so disturbing that it rivals the description of mankind at the time of Noah. After the passing of Joshua, a leadership vacuum leads to an era of declining morality with no unifying divinely appointed prophet or king the successes and failures of Israel rested upon a series of tribal leaders who, though gifted by the Lord, often had questionable morality. It was truly a dark era in redemptive history in which the nation that was to be the conduit of the Lord’s presence on earth became an occasion for scorn. Not only were Israel’s civic leaders poor representations of the Lord but also were its priests, Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s sons, who abused their power and disrespected the Lord they claimed to serve.

Enter into this climate a young boy already a miracle at his birth. After years without a word from the Lord, He would reveal Himself to this young novice.

Samuel’s story paints us an intimate and profound picture of what it means to hear from and respond to the Lord when He reveals Himself to us. This is of importance to us because the Lord’s plan for our lives is one of radical dependence a call and response faith in which the Lord speaks and we respond. Paul calls us to “be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Surely if the Lord wants us to do His will, He will not leave us in the dark.

If only we would learn how to listen.

I’ve been learning a lot about listening lately. It has come to my attention that I am not the best listener. So I went to a friend who I consider the best listener I know. How do you listen and care about others so much, I asked. His first answer did not surprise me: you have to really listen to what they’re saying (or not saying). His next response caused me to think a little deeper: you have to initially agree with everything they are saying. By this he meant that we must first start from a place of agreement. I found my friend’s response particularly interesting as I was considering this incident from Samuel’s life. When we say that we want to hear from the Lord, how are we approaching the answer? Are we going in with our own preconceptions or desires?

We must learn then how to hear the Lord.

And how to respond to Him.

We put ourselves in a position to hear the Lord when we are in the place we should be.

Samuel was where He should be. Of course in his case, this was a physical location. Samuel was in the temple. We might take this for granted since he was serving there, but consider that we hear no mention of where Eli’s sons were. Samuel took his calling seriously enough to put Himself where He knew the Lord was. I cannot help but hear Jesus’ words to His parents as he talked with the priests: “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?”

Not only was Samuel physically in the place that he was supposed to be, he was also in the place spiritually that he was supposed to be. The rebellious sons of Eli had taken a cynical and manipulative attitude to their ‘service’ to the Lord. Samuel though was humble enough to sleep in the temple, unwilling even to depart for a moment from the presence of the Lord.

What about us? How can we put ourselves in a place to hear the voice of the Lord?

First, we must concern ourselves with the things of the Lord. We must be about the things that the Lord was about. Samuel valued the presence of God so much that he slept in the temple. Do we value the revealed Word of God? What value do we place on it in our lives practically? Does it occupy our thoughts? Does it consistently influence our thoughts and actions? By focusing in on the Word of God we put ourselves into a place where the Lord has the chance to speak through it.

Secondly, are we seeking a relationship with the Lord? Are we asking Him to speak to us? Many of us desire to have our future’s laid plain before us but have little patience for cultivating a relationship with the One whose plan it is. If we are not deeply investing in speaking (and listening) to the Lord, we will never be open enough to hear what He has to say.

Thirdly, who are we surrounding ourselves with? Are we surrounding ourselves with men and women who are striving hard after the Lord? Since the Lord often speaks through those who are living lives of radical dependence on Him, we too must surround ourselves with those friends and leaders who seek the Lord’s wisdom for their decisions. We naturally become like those who we surround ourselves with. Therefor we must guard zealously our integrity and the influence that others have on us, not because we are afraid of what ‘they’ might do to us, as if sin were some inescapable infection, but simply from a practical standpoint of like minds attracting each other. If we seek to know the Lord, we must surround ourselves with people who do likewise.

We plow the soil of our lives in preparation for the word of the Lord when we live lives that cultivate godly behaviors and thought patterns.

Perhaps as important as or more important than seeking the voice of the Lord is what we do once we receive it.

When the Lord speaks to us, we are obligated to respond, no matter the circumstance.

For Samuel, the message he received from the Lord wasn’t one that was pleasant or easy to deliver. The Lord’s condemnation of Eli and his sons was not one that was likely to be met with a great amount of enthusiasm. Eli was, after all, his elder, priest, and spiritual authority. To deliver a message of condemnation against him would ensure at least a little acrimony towards Samuel. Yet the message was from the Lord and Samuel proved faithful in the telling.

Our obligation in receiving a message from the Lord is to carry it out unconditionally. Too often we long to hear a message from the Lord only to balk at fulfilling it out of fear or pride.

While we all desire to hear the Lord directly address our situation, we often ignore the very words He has recorded and sustained for us. The Bible is, at its core, a collection of stories and commands that the Lord wanted us to know. He raised up individuals to create and preserve this message throughout the generations. These words are the things He wanted to communicate to us. We want to know the Lord’s plan for our lives and the Lord is saying: ‘I already told you: Love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.’ When we disregard the Bible we prove ourselves to be hypocrites who cry for a new meal when we don’t like the one we’ve been offered to us. It’s not that inquiring of the Lord is a bad thing, far from it, but when we fail to act upon what has already been revealed to us, we show our diffidence to the One we claim to follow. I would even go so far to say that when we demand the Lord reveal His plan for us yet ignore what He has already told us, we prove that we are not honoring God but rather ourselves and our own selfish desires. I believe the Lord is more interested in how we respond to that which He already told us than He is in us seeking new messages.

That is not to say that the Lord does not speak to us. He certainly does, giving personal application through the Bible, through other humans, through the personal insight of the Holy Spirit, and yes, even audibly. However, I believe we should concern ourselves less with seeking continual revelation and more on being fruitful with that which has already been given to us.

As Jesus taught in a parable, we are given talents according to the Father’s wisdom and will be judged based upon what we did with the great (or little) we were given. When the Lord reveals something to us, our obligation is to respond.

I remember a time in college when I lay awake on my bunk pleading with the Lord to know who I was to marry and what I was to do. Despite my zeal to know His future plans for me, I was largely indifferent to several unaddressed sins in my life.

Some of us are inordinately interested in hearing “a word” from the Lord but not nearly as entranced by obeying what has been entrusted to us already.

If we claim to follow the Lord with our lives then the focus of our lives should be worshipping Him and obeying all that He has commanded us. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” John relates to us. We need to live lives of radical expectation, preparing ourselves to hear and discern the Lord’s will by living according to what has been revealed.

We, like Samuel, are novices in this life with God. However, it is often the passionate inexperienced who are most apt to hear from the Lord. They lack the cynicism, biases, and traditions that sometimes cause us to question or (God forbid) ignore the Spirit’s leading. We need the passion of the young and the humility of the mature to hear and respond to the Lord’s call. Let us pray for a word from the Lord, be actively expecting Him to speak and, most importantly, the strength and courage to act the moment He speaks.