Abide in His Calling | Part II | 1 Samuel 3:1-18

However many books are written on the subject of God’s calling, for each individual who receives that call a mystery remains: is this an authentic message from God, and if so, how am I to know that?

- Joyce G. Baldwin

Samuel bolts upright. The Voice was so direct, so clear – it reached him with the authority of someone calling for his presence. He shivers. Climbing up from the dusty ground, Samuel runs to the priest’s side and shakes him awake. Here I am! You called for me.

You can imagine that Eli groaned. 

In a time when “there (is) no frequent vision,” how does one know the calling of the Lord? Some claim that there is no stronger call upon mankind in these times than his natural duty to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever,” to the extent that any of his choices, whatever they may be, are intrinsically his calling. If he is a carpenter, such was his calling. If he is a plumber, perhaps not all callings are made to be so glamorous. 

Others hear voices.

Samuel comes to Eli’s side three times before the priest realizes what is occurring. Three times – this is a favorite triadic implication of the Biblical narrative. When things are tripled, they deserve consideration. This time, Eli does not tell the boy to go back to sleep. (How could any boy sleep with the Almighty breathing down his neck?)

This time, the Voice finds a willing and ready heart. 

Step one to knowing the calling of the Lord upon your life – losing sleep. 

In sincerity, the calling of God is a tripled Voice in the night. It is a gentle whisper after the fire and the flood. It is an insistent question in the belly of a whale. You can run, sprint, to the ends of the Earth, and you will find yourself all the way back where you began the journey. The Earth, as you might suppose, is circular after all. The calling of God is circular. There is a sense in which we return, return, return to certain things when we attempt to outmaneuver them. There is also a sense in which a Christian cannot sleep well when they are too afraid to walk in the way they heard spoken behind them. (Isaiah 30:21) 

Step two – answer the phone. 

You’ve been so afraid of what the answer will be, that the answer will be the very sending that some people are so desperately searching for, that you’ve pulled the phone off the wall. You refuse to accept that the Lord is calling to you. That His voice is incessantly stretching out towards you and calling you out into an unfamiliar place. Or, perhaps, you never ask for an answer at all. To know the answer might be too terrible. Only, in the daylight, you tell others that you’re unsure why the Lord of the Universe hasn’t given you clear direction.  

You will be given circle vision if you look for it. Different than tunnel vision. Different than 20/20. Suddenly, the patterns in life, the subtleties between the subtext, become a language you understand. Your eyes for the calling you have been given will grow stronger, and you will learn to see what is meant for you. 

Step three – walk in faith and wait for the proof.

Samuel, afraid of the Word of the Lord that is about to destroy the very roof, walls, and foundation of the house of Eli, seems to consider keeping what he heard in the night from the Priest. But, in perhaps a final act of faith, Eli shakes his head. “Do not keep it from me.” He asserts that this calling, and prophesy, is from the Lord. He relinquishes control. He will let the Lord do what seems best to Him. 

A calling is always proved. It just depends on your determination of success, of concrete evidence. The calling of Jim Elliot was proved in his death (a conception of failure) and legacy; the calling of Samuel was proved in the displacement of Eli’s house and the validation of his prophecy. You’re an impatient kid – sometimes the proving takes far too long. Perhaps, in a lack of faith, many have lost their way in this period and abandoned the commitment. 

“We are God's: let us therefore live for him and die for him.” 

– John Calvin

There is, sometimes, no way to explain a calling in a way that will be believed. You walk in a time when the Word of the Lord is rare, and there is no frequent vision. Even now, you must weigh your own thoughts and desires against the blade of the Word and discern what is right. Even now, you must learn not to trust your own wishes implicitly but revel in the act of weighing everything carefully against the true scale. 

And yet, I have this conviction – the strange, the uncommonly brave, will be proved in the last days and the true callings of the Lord will not be upheld for nothing. 

You will have to be brave. 

You will have to rise up in the night and be willing to hear, to answer, to walk on. You will have to be willing to lose – both in the contest of success and the things, people, that will not survive the journey. (If you’re proven true in the last days, they will concede and all will be restored. Is this not worth the loss?) 

But if it is truly as important as you secretly believe, as you tell yourself in the night, would it not be worth everything? Would it not be worth the one life you get? 

The Presence of the Lord vanishes from Samuel’s sight (terminology in 3:10 implies some physical appearing) and daylight finally breaks over the hills at Shiloh. Though, perhaps, he does not know it yet, this is the first morning of Samuel’s new life. The next phase of Israel’s history has been set in motion - this calling is about to change everything.

Perhaps throwing open the doors of the house of the Lord is more of a symbol than muscle memory this time.