The Christian Life: An Owner's Manual

Most books on basic Christian teaching focus on the teachings of the epistles and gospels. These clear passages are good for distilling and clarifying doctrines. But sometimes they're hard to remember and not very exciting.

From Chapter Seven, "Spiritual Growth: Getting Close to God"

. . . I want to be very clear that the Scriptures are a tool we use to get close to God. He wants to communicate intimately and personally to us by using the written word. A lot of Christians have never had God speak to them. How grievous when God is just an impersonal abstraction!

There is a story in 1 Samuel 3 that illustrates what happens to a person who is a stranger to God's Word. It starts with a description that could match the lives of many Christians:

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord before Eli. And word from the Lord was rare in those days, visions were infrequent (1 Sam. 3:1 NASB).

Word from God was rare in those days. That's the scenario I'm talking about. Samuel was a young man who was learning to be a priest while Eli was the current priest. The story continues to set the stage:

And it happened at the time as Eli was lying down in his place (now his eyesight had begun to grow dim and he could not see well), and the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was (vv. 2-3).

Eli was getting old and losing his eyesight, so he used to sleep right there in the temple. The lamp was supposed to burn all night. By saying it had not gone out it is telling us that it is very late, but not so late that the lamp had already gone out. It is the dead calm of the early morning hours.

The Lord called Samuel; and he said, "Here I am." Then he ran to Eli and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, lie down again." So he went and lay down (vv. 4-5).

Samuel did what anyone would do. He assumed the voice came from Eli in the next room. So God called to Samuel again.

And the Lord called yet again, "Samuel!" So Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he answered, "I did not call, my son, lie down again" (v. 6).

Surely Samuel suspected something was up. A voice in the middle of the night! And Eli had already said it wasn't him. But again, he went to see if perhaps Eli might be calling him. In the next verse, we learn why Samuel was so hesitant to conclude that he was hearing the voice of God.

Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor had the word of the Lord yet been revealed to him (v. 7).

It's not that Samuel didn't know about God. He was training to be a priest, after all! What Samuel was missing was the personal knowledge of God that comes from communication. "The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him." Here is the point for us to listen to. When the Word of God is rare in our lives, then we don't expect him to speak. The longer we go without hearing from God, the more cynical we become about ever hearing from him. I know. I've experienced months at a stretch where I was just going through the motions; there was no reality to my relationship with God. It got to the point where I thought I was different from other people. They may experience God, but there's something wrong with me.

God finally got through to Samuel, with the help of Eli.

So the Lord called Samuel again for the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli discerned that the Lord was calling the boy. And Eli said to Samuel, "Go lie down, and it shall be if He calls you, that you shall say, 'Speak, Lord, for Thy servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Then the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for Thy servant is listening." And the Lord said to Samuel, "Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.

God finally spoke to Samuel fully. Unfortunately, the message God had for Samuel was a sad one. Eli and his sons were going to die. But the point for us to see is that God didn't speak until Samuel recognized who it was and said, "I'm ready to hear from you, Lord." This is the attitude we need before God will speak to us. We must come to the point where we put aside our cynicism and are willing to hear whatever God has to say to us.

When we are ready and willing to hear God's Word, then we must open the Scriptures. This is the means God has chosen to speak. Whether it's by reading the Bible, listening to teaching, studying it with friends, or reading books about the Bible, we must begin to seek a deeper relationship with God in the Scriptures.

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