The Boy who Became a Prophet Relates to Us

I'm wrestling with something. Bear with me, my people.


1 Samuel 3. I think we are all pretty familiar with it, Samuel's calling from God. However, 1 Samuel 3:1-4, can relate to our lives today. (Everything is relatable, but we need pastors to help us understand sometimes - and the Holy Spirit.) Why and how? Samuel was literally sleeping under the Ark of the Covenant. He grew up around the Spirit. Studies by biblical scholars have revealed that in those days, before Pentecost and Christ, the Ark of the Covenant was the presence of God among the people. So Samuel was literally sleeping under the presence of the God, or the Holy Spirit! 


And yet, Samuel did not recognize God when He called him. Three times God called him. Finally by the fourth time, Eli, the priest who had became a backslider, finally understood it was God. (God can cause even hard consciences to come to His understanding for His purposes.) Eli told him if it happened again, to say, "Here I am, Lord, your servant." (The "if" is another subject all together.) 


And Samuel responded. 


But think about it. Samuel, who we know as one of the great prophets of the Bible, who would anoint King Saul and King David, from whose line would come Christ, had grown up all in his life in the "church" system, and He thought the voice he heard was Eli! God revealed to me that we - myself especially - can begin to rely on our pastor's voice to tell us everything we need to know, or some other authority, like a parent, leader, family member, or friend. We should respect others in authority. God speaks through them, and He confirms what you need to hear. I am not talking about that.


Let me say something. I am not disputing that or saying that we should NOT go to church and devote ourselves to the preaching. We should. If we are not going to a Bible-believing church and interacting with other Christians, we are not being proper. It's like seeing your family once a year - it doesn't work for developing healthiness (Hebrews 10:23-32 says do not forsake gathering together). Psalm 1 talks about a healthy tree is planted and not uprooted. So we should gather together and also be planted in the House of the Lord. 


I am saying that we should be able to hear from the Lord. We should not mistake God's voice. God speaks; if we speak and we are made in His image God also must have a distinct voice. Does he chose to speak to everyone? I don't know. But some people never hear an audible voice, and some do. (I think a lot of it has to do with belief - do we believe that God has an audible voice to speak to us with?) If we DO hear an audible voice, that should be warning, or a sign. We should be in close communion with Him, and then we will know the sound of God's voice is. God changed Samuel's heart, and Samuel became close to God. 


He became a prophet. 


Here's something else that's shocking. 1 Samuel 3:7 - "Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, nor was the word of the LORD yet revealed to him."


Samuel SLEPT under the Holy Spirit, but he did not know God. How can that be? Just like Samuel, I have always grown up in the church. Most of us have. We're saved, or see others saved, or see miracles. Or we grow up with parents who are ministers (in any form - pretty much they publicly share with their brothers and sisters in the church). But it's not the same as operating under the Holy Spirit. When we receive the Spirit, we are awake, alive and moving with the Spirit, but Samuel was asleep. This was as much a physical sleeping as a spiritual sleeping. Samuel had not received the Spirit to prophesy or preach, but he was around it. He knew in his head what the Spirit was, but he had no experienced it yet. God had not appointed the time. And when God did, Samuel knew it.


Well, this weekend has been a time of anointing and pouring out of God's presence. I pray that people are receiving it and getting as much out of it as I am. I am praying that this feeling will continue, and not squelch God. Nothing burns/ignites us more than Christ, the Son of Man and God. I am realizing that the Holy Spirit is not frightening - only to our flesh, because our flesh knows that when the Holy Spirit moves in, the flesh has to go. And it doesn't want to move out! It clings harder than ever, but if we allow the gentle hands that fashioned the world to shape our hearts, souls, and minds, then slowly our flesh is crucified and we are truly living for God and in Christ's image.


Praying you have faith, hope, and love always, 


Rachel