Speak Lord

"Speak, for Your servant is listening." 1 Samuel 3:10

         Noises fill our ears, bustling bodies around us, confusion that invades...This is the kind of new age lifestyle we all lead. In the middle of all this God is telling us to "Be still, and know that" He is God. Do we take time to stop and listen to God? Even our prayers have been fashioned into monologues were we have decided to do all the talking and assigned God the duty of listening. Many of us find it very difficult to sit and listen to God. We find ourselves saying, " I would listen to God if He would just speak out loud" or " I would be better at listening, if God would be better at speaking". Could it be that maybe, just maybe...It's not God's fault, but ours, for not actually listening?
          1 Samuel 3 is a great example that teaches us the art of being still and listening. While I was thinking about God speaking, I thought maybe first I need to be where God speaks. In this day and era, its hard to find a quiet place or a time of calm to even sort out our everyday problems. But we need to put ourselves in a place and position where we can hear God most clearly. Little Samuel was in the best place to hear God speak. He was in the temple where God dwelt. If we think and look hard enough, we can also find that place for us...for some its our car, our bedroom, our kitchen while cooking, our little corner of peace. 
         Even after being in that corner of peace, we should remember that prayer most definitely is not a monologue, but a conversation where I should wait to hear from my Lord. Often times I see myself going with the motion of praying, forgetting that God is searching for even a tiny interval to speak a word. In the book of Samuel we see that Eli and his sons have wandered away from God. They have robbed God by putting themselves first through immoral and impure lives and their arrogance. Because of his own arrogance of his 'priestliness' we see God passing over Eli to speak to a little child like Samuel. Even as a little boy, Samuel had the desire to hear from God, when God saw the readiness and the preparedness he started speaking. We need to prepare ourselves to hear from God.  

          Often times, we are too focused on the wrong things waiting to hear from God. Though we have heard the sermon a thousand times of the still small voice, we still think God speaks in grand terms. Lighting flashes, thunder roars, clouds surround us, trumpets blasts...we are waiting for these impressive introductions to sit up and say, "Speak, for Your servant is listening". None of this happened when God spoke to Samuel. Instead, God calls his name quietly in the night. Okay, so my mind is wandering off to Balaam's donkey. So there are some times when God speaks by opening a donkey's mouth or speaking through a fiery bush, but often times expect God to speak in quiet and simple ways.

         Distractions are our worst enemy when it comes to sitting down and waiting patiently. I have heard this story from some of the sermons in the past and its a great little moralized story. --- A pilot was having difficulty landing his plane due to unexpected fog on the runway. So the airport  decides to land him by radar. As he is receiving instructions, the pilot remembers of a tall pole that he saw before the fog in his flight path. Fearing his life and the possible accident, the pilot radios the control tower with panicked  refusal. A blunt reply comes back to the pilot, " You obey the instructions, and we will take care of the obstructions."  God will take care of all distractions as long as we take care of our end, and that is sitting at the feet of God like Mary and just listen. Jesus said in John 8:47 "He who belongs to God hears what God says." It is time and past due for us to cry out to God and say, "Speak, for Your servant is listening."