1 Sam 3

1 Samuel 3

“And the child Samuel served Jehovah before Eli. And the Word of Jehovah was rare in those days. There was no open vision.” (1 Samuel 3:1).

Israel was in a fine state. They had a temple. They had priests. They had sacrifices. Yet they did not have the Word of the Lord. In fact, verse 7 tells us that Samuel did not know who Jehovah LORD was! This is the boy who had served all his days in the temple, and he did not even know who he was serving.

“And Jehovah called again, Samuel! And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, Here am I, for you called me. And he answered, I did not call, my son. Go back, lie down.” (1 Sam 3:6).

The Lord had an amazing ministry planned out for Samuel. I am sure it was far beyond what Samuel had asked or even thought of. It begins in the temple, where the ark is, when he is still a boy. There was one thing that needed to take place before the ministry began. The Lord and Samuel had to meet.

What a brilliant picture for us. Here we are, and we can be caught up in loads of ministry. We can be helping at all the events, cooking for people, setting up chairs, and cleaning bathrooms. We can be preparing teachings, doing blogs, and serving communion. We can be doing all these things, but if we do not spend time with the Lord, and get to know Him, we can be doing it all for naught. I once heard it said that a pastor had been faithfully leading his flock for over a decade. Despite putting loads of effort into it and always making sure everything was perfect, the congregation began to drop and people were falling away from the Lord. When asking another pastor about this, the other pastor merely replied, “When was the last time you had personal time with the Lord?” The first pastor stood perplexed. Every time he had gone to sit down and to spend time with the Lord, it had quickly become a time to prepare a lesson or help out with something else. He quickly realized that his entire ministry had looked more like Martha and less like Mary.

Gang, spend time with just you and the Lord for no other reason but to know Him more. Do not any time, even this blog time, to get in the way or take the place of just you and Jesus time. Who knows what the Lord wants to tell you personally!!! Maybe, like Samuel, He is just waiting for that opportunity where no one is around. Maybe He is just waiting for you to stop doing church activities, and to simply come to Him. Maybe God is waiting to tell you something, I suggest your answer be, “Speak, for your servant hears.”