You’re
sitting in a darkened theater enjoying a concert, a play, or a film, when
suddenly a smartphone screen lights up as a person reads an incoming text and
perhaps takes time to reply. In his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is
Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr says that in our connected world, “The
sense that there might be a message out there for us” is increasingly difficult
to resist.
Samuel
was a young boy when he heard a voice call his name and thought it was Eli the
priest in the tabernacle where he served the Lord (1 Sam. 3:1-7). When Eli
realized that God was calling Samuel, he told the boy how to respond. When God
called his name a fourth time, “Samuel answered, ‘Speak, for Your servant
hears’” (v.10). This attentiveness to God’s voice became the pattern of
Samuel’s life as “the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of
the Lord” (v.21).
Are we
listening for God’s voice in our lives today? Are we more drawn by the
vibration of a smartphone than the still, small voice of the Lord through His
Word and His Spirit?
May we, like Samuel, learn to discern God’s voice and say, “Speak, Lord. I’m listening.”
Don’t let the noise of the world keep you from hearing the voice of God. (RBC)
