Leon Smith 3. 14.21

Here is a story from biblical times—and a modern one— in which God HIMSELF spoke directly to human beings. First, the biblical story.

After her family completed their-eight hour journey to the Tabernacle at Shiloh, Hannah did not touch the food and drink which Elkanah brought.

“Why are you crying?” her husband asked.

Though she could not answer, both she and her husband knew how desperately she needed a son.

After the others had finished, with her plate still full, Hannah walked over to the tabernacle to talk to God. She entered the area of prayer, not seeing Eli, the Priest, who was watching her from his seat beside one of the posts of the tent.

She found a place to kneel, sighed deeply, then made a request, and an awesome promise.

“Dear LORD of Hosts,” she prayed, “if you would please look on my affliction, remember me, and give me a son…”

She may have paused and taken a deep breath before she continued.

“…If you give me a son, I will give him back to you all the days of his life. “

Her shoulders trembling, she continued to pray, with her lips still moving, but her voice falling silent.

Eli watched her for a time, then shook his head, got up from his seat, and walked over.

“Why do you have to come to the tabernacle drunk?” he asked.

“I’m not drunk, sir,” she replied. “I’m just pouring my soul out to the Lord.”

Eli stepped back to look at her more closely, to see that he had been mistaken. She was completely sober, and obviously telling the truth.

“Go in peace,” he said, “and may the God of Israel answer your prayer.”

“May I find grace in your sight,” Hannah replied, wiping away her tears, and managing a smile.

Back at their camp site, Hannah ate the meal her husband had brought her. Next morning, she returned, satisfied to Ramah. At this time not even Eli heard a direct word from God.

But shortly after they returned home, Hannah became pregnant, and at the appointed time she gave birth to the son she asked for, and named him Samuel, which means “requested from the most high God.”

She kept her little boy until after she had weaned him, then took him to live with Eli the priest, as she had promised. A few years later the child would hear a word directly from the LORD.

Eli had two sons who showed great disrespect for the tabernacle, even taking for themselves the meat sacrifices worshipers had brought. Perhaps this disrespect for the House of the LORD was the reason God had not spoken to his people for a very long time.

Things changed one evening, when Samuel had grown into boyhood.

After he went to bed one evening, the LORD called out, “Samuel.”

“Here I am,” the child answered, then ran to see what the priest wanted.

“I didn’t call you, son,” Eli said. “Go back and lie down.”

So, Samuel went back, as the Eli told him.

In a few minutes, the LORD called a second time, “Samuel.”

Samuel ran to Eli and said “Here I am, for you did call me.”

Eli said again. “I did not call you, son. Lie back down.”

So, Samuel did as Eli said.

But the LORD called again, “Samuel.”

Samuel ran to Eli the third time.

“It’s unheard of for an unknown voice to call a child—at all,” Eli must have thought. “Much less three times in a row. This might be God; I need to tell the child what to do.”

“If He calls again,” Eli told Samuel, “say ‘Speak LORD, your servant hears you.’”

Samuel nodded, then ran back to his bed.

This time— in what is known as” a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus” the LORD stood at Samuel’s bed and called him.

“Speak LORD, your servant hears you,” Samuel said.

Then the LORD gave Samuel a warning for Eli.

Now for the second story.

Some time ago, I met a woman I’ll call “Jane,” who prayed with as much fervor as Hannah. Not for a son, but for the life of her only daughter, perhaps thirty years old, who had suffered for perhaps ten years from a severely degenerative disease.

She had many operations; both mother and daughter knew this last operation was serious, and that her child might die.

Jane prayed and cried, and cried and prayed. Finally, her daughter died.

Crying out again in prayer again, Jane heard a voice, which asked:

“What do you want from me?”

Jane was not able to answer, for she was in such grief, and shock that she could not even process the question. Sometime later she realized that she heard the voice of God that day—and remembered that Samuel had said, “Speak LORD your servant hears you,” in response.

She has not heard that voice again, but when she does, she knows how to answer.

Samuel needed someone to tell him how to respond when God speaks. Eli gave him that information. There was no complete Bible in Samuel’s day. Now with the canon complete, we discover that if God has taught us something in his word, we need not expect him to tell us the same thing again. Ignorance is no excuse.

So where do we get our information? From our own study—in 1st Samuel 2-3— from Godly parents, Pastors and Teachers, from friends, and from insightful folks who remember that the Book is filled up with information on how to get in touch with God, and from folks like Jane, with enough courage to tell a near-stranger what happened to her.

She reminded me of Samuel’s reply, and that because God still speaks to us, I need to be ready to hear what he has to say –just as much as Israel did in Samuel’s day. I think today, even more.

Perhaps you do, as well.