Place Yourself Where God Can Use You -1

1 Samuel 3:8-10

One of the struggles we have at home is our son who is an aspiring guitarist. He is very talented and practices whenever he has an opportunity. But that is where the problem lies. He often closes his door and plays his guitar, and when we want him we must shout his name over and over until he hears us. (Believe it or not Roger wrote this last week and I just had to do this!)

The third chapter of 1 Samuel gives the story of God calling Samuel to be in ministry. If you read 1 Samuel 3:1-7 you will see that Samuel is living in the temple with his mentor and caretaker, Eli, a priest. One night the young Samuel hears his name called, so he goes to Eli assuming the priest has called him.

What did Eli realize? What were his instructions to Samuel? Who appears to Samuel? How does he respond?

So many of us have wanted an experience like Samuel’s. We have wanted to hear the voice of God and to know that it is the Lord who is speaking and calling us. Too often we may feel that God has spoken to us, urged us to do this thing or that, but we wonder if it really was God or just our own imagination, or our own wishful thinking.

To receive the call of God Samuel had to place himself at God’s disposal. He had to prepare himself to hear the call and he had to be ready to respond.

God calls all of us into some service or another. God speaks to each of us at one time or another, offering guidance or leading us into doing some good work for the Kingdom of God. Some of us choose to lock ourselves away from the call of God, hiding ourselves and filling our ears with the noise of our lives so we will not hear God’s call. But some of us are like Samuel at the beginning of the story, confused about the call, uncertain, perhaps misdirected. With the guidance of Eli Samuel was able to place himself where God could reach him and use him.

If we will be God’s children, if we will call ourselves Christians and servants of God, then we must place ourselves where God can call us. We must prepare ourselves to hear God’s voice and answer when we are called. We can do this through frequent prayer, but also through a willingness to surrender ourselves and our abilities to the work of God.

DAILY CHALLENGE: How can you place yourself where God can call you?