Holy Listening

Then the Lord came and stood there, calling just as before, “Samuel, Samuel!”

Samuel said, “Speak. Your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10, CEB)

I admit in my life I have spent a lot of time thinking about the ideas surrounding a person’s calling. And of all the descriptions I’ve found, I love author Parker Palmer as he describes “This is something I can’t not do, for reasons I’m unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling” (1).

If we read the verses leading up to verse ten quoted above, as Samuel laid there that night, he repeatedly heard God’s voice, but he assumed that it was the priest Eli calling out to him. I think sometimes we respond similarly to Samuel. God is speaking to us, but we assume it is someone else, thinking “surely it isn’t God who is speaking to me.”

The key takeaway for me is that discerning God’s call is mostly about us listening. It has little to do with our actions, or our will, or our intentions. It starts with listening.

At this point, you may be thinking, as people often say to me, “Shawn I don’t know that I’ve ever heard God speak directly to me.” This is one reason a couple years ago I led the youth group through weeks of study on learning to hear the voice of God. Hearing God is a skill that we must practice. Hearing God is about paying attention. We need learn how to focus our attention on several different things.

First, we can focus on prayer. What are we hearing God say when we pray? Second, we can focus on scripture. What are we hearing as we read God’s word? Third, we can pay attention to the godly people in our lives. What is their counsel about discerning our calling? Finally, God can speak to us in many other ways, such as encounters with his creation, through the arts such as music, and through life’s circumstances …but first in order to hear, we must be listening.

In closing, we often assume that the pursuit of calling is something that only young people need to concern themselves with. However, in my life I have found my calling to be an ever developing, dynamic process, rather than a static once and done discovery. So, I encourage you, whatever your age to ask, “God what are You calling me to pursue today?” or “What is the thing right now I can’t not do for God?”

I invite you to pray with me:

Speak to me Lord, your child is listening.
God help me to silence the world’s many voices,
To turn off my phone, my TV, my radio and simply listen.
In the quiet, give me ears to hear your calling for my life.
What is the next thing I can’t not do for You?
Give me discernment to sift through the many good things,
To find that one thing you are calling me to today.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I am listening, hear my prayer. Amen.

(1) Page 25, Let Your Life Speak (1999).

Pastor Shawn