Listening for Jesus or Looking for Cupcakes?

And the Lord came and called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” and Samuel replied, “Speak, your servant is listening.” 1 Samuel 3:10

One of my goals for the New Year is to sit in God’s presence and just listen. In one of my listening sessions after a sweet time in Jesus’ presence, I heard Him speaking to me about my children. This year my word for the year is discipline. I’m not a disciplined person naturally, but it’s vital if I want to be the person God calls me to be and spend my time wisely. I had been praying over my children that day pretty intensely and the Lord spoke to me about being disciplined in teaching them about God’s Word, memorizing it, learning to listen and hear from Him, and just getting comfortable in His presence.

So that afternoon I set forth accomplishing what God had told me to do! After a few rounds of a matching game, I told them we were going to praise the Lord, work on starting to memorize James chapter 4, pray and then listen because God wants to speak to us but we have to intentionally listen. As we listened to the music it did my heart so good to see the smiles on their faces as we worshipped the Lord and raised our hands in praise. We then put James 4:1 to a rap, my mom would make up these awesome tunes to help us put verses to memory but fitting the words into phrases is easier than trying to remember a tune for me! {LOL} Then we prayed and talked to Jesus and then I told them to listen…

In the text where our passage above is from, we find a young Samuel whose job it was to assist and help the prophet of Israel, Eli, in the temple. After the work was done and they were lying down for the night the Lord called out to Samuel. He immediately got up and ran to Eli saying, “Here, I am” not realizing that it was the Lord that was calling him. This happened three times because Samuel had never personally heard from the Lord. In fact, 1 Samuel 3:1 it says that word from the Lord was rare and precious in those days. So it was no surprise why he didn’t expect it to be from the Lord. So Eli instructed him to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” So He did, and the Lord prophesied to Samuel what was going to take place.

Unlike in the times of Samuel, we have the amazing gift of being able to directly hear from God ourselves because of Jesus’ sacrifice that allows us to literally converse with God. He can speak personally into our hearts and He desires to, but are we listening? Or are we too busy, too consumed with our lives and looking for what we want to really stop and just be with Him and wait in His presence to see if He wants to share something with us?

After a few minutes of listening with my littles, okay more like 2, it’s hard for a 3, 5, and 6 year old to sit still and listen to me let alone the Lord who they can’t see- but I want to start to practice- I asked my oldest if he felt like God spoke to him and he replied, “Well, I heard that I need to be more thankful and bless others.” I was honestly shocked, but then I had asked the Lord during those quiet moments to speak. It was so applicable to where he is in his life and I thanked the Lord for speaking into his heart. Then I asked my 5-year-old. He said, “God told me I was the only one that could eat the rest of your birthday cupcakes.” After I composed myself from laughter, the Lord smote my spirit with the reality that many times I may say that I’m listening and ready to heed the Lord’s response, but in reality I’m just doing it to feel better about myself with every intention of hearing what I want to hear and looking for what I want… OUCH. Have you been there?!

My prayer is that I’ll learn to listen and obey every time, and when I fail to quickly ask for forgiveness allowing God’s abundant grace to wash over me. But I pray that together, you, me and my babies, will become true listeners of Jesus and that when He speaks we will genuinely and wholeheartedly be able to say, “Speak, for Your servant is listening” with every intention of truly listening to Jesus and not looking for cupcakes.

Because of Christ’s Love,