26. Are You Listening?
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Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.
1 Samuel 3:9I
Nthe third chapter of 1 Samuel we learn that “in those days the
word of the LORDwas rare; and there were not many visions” (v.
1). It kind of makes me wonder. Which came first—the fact that
God wasn’t saying a lot or the fact that people weren’t listening?
Which came first—the fact that people weren’t looking for God or
the fact that visions were rare?
God is a person like us, and I don’t know about you, but when I
know I’m not being listened to, I tend to clam up a little. When I
know that no one cares whether I show up or not, I tend not to show
up.
And yet the young boy Samuel heard the voice of the Lord when
Eli, the temple priest, did not. Did you ever wonder why? The an-
swer to that question, I believe, is that Eli was tuned out and Samuel
was tuned in. Samuel was listening.
Samuel heard an audible voice and jumped up to answer that
voice. “Speak, Lord,” he said, “for your servant is listening.”