Day 11:When God called Samuel
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4 …The LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I.
5 And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down.
6 And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down again.
1 Samuel 3:4-6.
1. Perception and Discernment
In spiritual matters, things might not always mean what they seem, because of the high level of symbolism in that context.
In Isaiah 21:6-8, a watchman was put on duty and told, "let him declare what he seeth" (v.6). As that watchman looked out, "he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses and a chariot of camels." But the true watchman that he was, "he hearkened diligently with much heed" to what he was seeing (v.7), "And he cried, A lion! My Lord…!" (v.8).
The watchman was told to declare what he saw. He saw chariots. But after diligently hearkening "with much heed" to what he had seen, he cried, "A lion!"
There was perception: he saw chariots. There was also discernment of what he had perceived or seen. It was discerned as a lion rather than as the chariots that it had seemed initially. If the watchman had not rightly discerned the wild lion in what he had initially seen as pleasure chariots of domestic beasts, he would have found no need to raise an alarm, and nobody would have been prepared for the danger when the chariots of asses and camels turned into their true nature as a devouring lion.
Things, or even people, do not always ‘mean’ what they seem. The 9 o’clock evening news might not always ‘mean’ what you hear. The announcement about a great football match in the big stadium on Friday may actually ‘mean’ a call to prayers for the prophetic ear that is able to ‘sense’ the great national calamity that could break out from that stadium during that football tournament.
In Jeremiah 1:11-12, God showed Jeremiah "a rod of an almond tree," but proceeded quickly to offer an interpretation to what had been shown. The branch of the almond tree did not mean a bumper harvest or a whip of entertainment. It meant, "I will hasten my word to perform it." God was making a difference between perception and discernment.
In the case of Samuel in 1 Samuel 3, the young boy rightly heard a voice, but he was unable to discern the voice he had correctly perceived, because "Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him (1 Samuel 3:7). He perceived aright but discerned amiss.
2. Wrong Responses to Right Impulses
Samuel heard the voice of God, but he ran in the direction of man; in the direction of the priest who was a personification of his dreams. He had a problem with discerning what he had perceived. Samuel could have built a ministry out of that experience, and only God, and perhaps a few perceptive elders, would have been able to tell that the young man was on a wrong path, in spite of his true and fantastic stories of a spectacular encounter with the Voice of God.
There are several today who truly have heard the voice of God, but who are running in the wrong direction, because they had a wrong discernment of their right encounters.
3. Go and Sleep
When Samuel ran to Eli, the aged blind priest told him not once to go and "lie down again." May God deliver us from blind elders who keep sending us back to bed, because that is where they themselves frequently are (see 1 Samuel 1:9; 3:2; 4:13).
A divine fire had been stirring Samuel from his slumber, yet the old man kept sending him back to bed. How frustrating! I imagine the young boy busy up and down the passage, between hearing the voice of God and being turned back by the voice of Eli. I imagine him very busy, but getting nowhere. I imagine God calling out, "These are emergency times. Who will watch with Me just one hour? My people cannot afford to fall sleep in this season. I have to stir them up." Yet another mortal voice would say to a soul responding to such a fire, "Lie down AGAIN"!
That is what happens when we hear the voice of God but run in the wrong direction of men.
4. The Voice of Eli
Why did God call Samuel in the familiar voice of Eli? Wouldn’t Samuel have responded to that late night voice if he thought it was the voice of a stranger?
Often, God calls us in familiar voices. He knows what voice will get our sleepy attention quickest. May He keep calling, until we can respond aright. Amen.