Learning from 1 Samuel 3 - Responding to God’s Voice

1 Sam. 3:9-10 - “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening…”

In this story, Samuel is a little boy who lives at the Tabernacle in Israel and helps with chores. This was the twilight of the period of the Judges in Israel, a time of great spiritual confusion. The priests in that day had lost connection with God. The Bible says that it was very rare then for anyone to hear directly from God. The people had stopped listening. The priests themselves were unfaithful. There were awful scandals surrounding the new generation of priests, and the old generation had grown weak, lazy, and ineffective.

God wanted to bring spiritual renewal, to restart His relationship with His people. He called to the boy Samuel in the night. Samuel awoke to the sound of someone calling his name, but he had no idea that it might be God speaking, because that was outside his experience up to that point. He rushed to the elderly high priest, Eli, assuming that he had been calling out for him. The priest himself did not imagine that God might be calling the boy. Instead, he initially instructed the boy to go lie down and sleep.

Eli’s instruction to Samuel is an illustration of what religious leaders always tell their flocks after the connection with the Lord is lost. The message of having an obedient relationship with the Living God fades away, and the new message is simply reassurance, vague words of hope. Relax, they tell their audience. You can sleep peacefully tonight. Do not worry about sin, or God’s will, or judgment, or anything like that. Everything is fine. Sometimes the members begin to hear God calling - and they go to their leaders, who encourage them to ignore it, to go on with their lives as usual.

God was persistent. He kept calling Samuel; Samuel kept getting confused and running to the priest. The priest told him repeatedly to lie down and ignore it. Eventually, the priest realizes that something extraordinary might be happening - he remembers that God used to speak to His people in previous ages. So Eli told Samuel to wait for the voice to call again, and to respond, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” Samuel did so, and God began to speak to him in detail - and continued to do so throughout his life!

This is the instruction for us today. If we want to hear from God, we must be willing to listen and obey. When God calls, we should ask Him to speak more to us, whatever He wills. Unfortunately, many of us have such a strong attachment to our own opinions and preferences that we have limits on what we will tolerate from God. In such cases, we are not truly open to whatever the Lord wants to say. God looks for individuals who will listen when He speaks.

The Lord often speaks to His faithful servants, through the Word and through spiritual gifts, to remind us that He will take care of us if we are faithful and obey. He constantly brings us the revelation from eternity so that we will have strength to carry on and complete the Work the Lord has entrusted to us.