While we all want to hear God’s voice, it can be difficult to discern when God is speaking to us. With a constant flow of news and social media streams, our attention is constantly being divided. But what we need to realize about our relationship with God is that it is not a one-sided conversation. The truth is: God is always speaking to us, even if it may not be directly. He could be speaking through the conflict you feel, or your relationships, or even just through repetition. God is trying to get your attention, but are you ready to listen? He could be waiting for you to say, “Here I am, God. I’m listening.” Because it’s less about when He speaks and more about your position to receive.
How many are glad that God has “call waiting,”
that God will call you again?
Ask Jonah.
Jonah wasn’t even a talented preacher.
He didn’t have funny stories.
He didn’t have good charisma.
He didn’t even like people, but God used him,
because when God calls you he will call back.
You know how there are some people you have
to call when you call them, so you’re secretly
hoping you get their voicemail because you
really don’t want to talk to them anyway?
Some of you think God is like that, like he
really wants someone else and he’s really
glad he doesn’t have to deal with you.
But God wants you.
God wants you.
God chose you.
God put the genetics in you, the DNA in you,
the passion in you.
The opportunity is for you.
What God has for you is for you.
That’s why you don’t have to be jealous, insecure,
biter, or resentful.
That’s why you don’t have to get back.
That’s why you don’t have to take revenge,
because what God has for you is for you.
Somebody shout, “Here I am!”
That was really the answer.
It’s not only the culture that confuses us
in our calling, it’s not only our contacts
sometimes, but it’s the conflict of calling.
The conflict of calling is great on an internal
and an external level.
What Samuel did next…
What a beautiful little story to show us that
God repeats things.
That’s one way I know he’s speaking.
Have you ever noticed this?
When God is trying to get your attention,
it’s kind of like when you’re shopping for
a certain car and you start seeing them everywhere.
When God wants to get a message across to
you, he’ll put you in the market for it.
You never even looked at anybody else’s Beats,
but now you’re like, “Well, what’s that one?
How’s that one different than that one and
this one and the other one, because I’m in
the market for God?”
When you get in the market for God, you start
noticing that he has been speaking all along.
There was confirmation.
I didn’t have time to put this word in the
sermon.
It starts with the letter C, so it could be
a bonus point: confirmation.
God will speak something over here, over here,
over here, and you’ll start noticing it.
You’ll start noticing little things.
You’ll hear it in a sermon, and then you’ll
hear it in a movie, and then you’ll hear it
in a song, and then you’ll see it on the back
of somebody’s window, and then you’ll hear
it through your husband, and then you’ll hear
it through…
You’ll start seeing it and hearing it.
Then you have to discern, which is to separate.
That’s what Eli did.
He discerned.
The Hebrew word is biyn.
He discerned.
He separated.
He made a distinction.
He had a discernment to know, “This is the
Lord calling the boy.”
So he said, “When it happens again…”
This is the word of the Lord for you.
When it happens again, if it happens again,
just say, “Speak, Lord; your servant is listening.”
I want to show you something that the Lord
just showed me.
His greatest revelation happened in rest.
Eli didn’t say, “Oh!
That may be God.
You’d better run out and catch him before
he leaves.
Boy, if God spoke to you, you’d better chase
him down.”
No.
If it was God speaking, he’ll come back.
All you have to do is be in position for it.
That’s all you have to do.
You don’t have to find it; it’ll find you.
Trust me.
God is not playing hide and seek in the tabernacle.
God is not running around the tent saying,
“Ha, ha, ha!
Maybe if I hide behind this table of showbread
Samuel will never find me back here.
Samuel!
Ha, ha, ha!”
God is not hiding behind the laver.
He’s not hiding.
Even though God is always moving, he’s never
hiding.
That’s what the tabernacle was.
It was a portable structure.
They set it up in the wilderness, because
they never knew when God was going to say,
“Stop” and when God was going to say, “Go.”
Why?
Because God does not want you to depend on
his will; he wants you to depend on him.
There’s a difference.
One is “God, just show me what to do.
That way I won’t need you.”
The other one is, “God, I want you wherever
you lead me, wherever you take me, whatever
it means, whatever it costs, and whatever
it looks like.”
Here’s the conflict.
Samuel goes in and lies down.
The Bible says he didn’t know the Lord yet.
He knew how to bake the bread in the tabernacle.
That was his job.
He knew how to open the doors so people could
come worship.
He knew how to follow Eli around, and “Get
me this” and “Get me that.”
[0:32:00]But there’s a big difference between
the rituals of religion and a relationship
with God.
If you’re going through the motions, like
singing songs not really thinking about the
words, just kind of singing them, or hearing
little forgettable things I say in my sermon
that you won’t even remember what it was about
15 minutes after I’m done, it’s possible that
you don’t know the Lord yet.
I don’t mean you’re not a Christian.
Not necessarily.
I don’t mean you don’t believe in God.
Not necessarily.
But to know him is to know his voice.
When you know him like that, you can hear
things that are hard to hear, but you can
know that even when he says things that are
hard for you to hear he says them from a spirit
of love, grace, and purpose.
One of my friends is a real over-texter.
I can’t keep up with him.
I love him, but my thumbs hurt.
I can’t do it.
I don’t voice text because it’s annoying because
it corrects the wrong words the wrong way,
and you can get in trouble that way and say
something you didn’t mean to say, end up firing
somebody you meant to hire, but it changes
it.
It doesn’t know, because your voice.
Anyway, one time he texted me.
He said, “How come our conversation is all
gray?”
On iPhone when they text you it’s gray.
When you text back it’s blue.
When he said that, I wondered if sometimes
my relationship with God is all gray, to where
he is speaking and he is prompting and he
is provoking…
But God can speak, speak, speak…
Three times he did it.
God didn’t say anything different the third
time except this.
When he said, “Speak, Lord; your servant is
listening,” and he lay down in his place…
I have to hit that really quickly.
It says, “Samuel went and lay down in his
place.”
That’s verse 9.
In his place.
You will realize God’s purpose when you get
in your place.
If God is dropping off the mail but you’re
not home, you won’t get it, and you’ll think
he didn’t send it and you’ll think he didn’t
speak.
But I learned something with my friend.
It was not just the conflict of the calling;
it was the color.
It was all gray, but the breakthrough is in
the blue.
It’s not just when God speaks; it’s when you
get in your place and say, “God, here I am,
the real me, the honest me, the open me, the
ready me, the humble me, the broken-down me,
the me that is ready to do your will.
I’ve done my will and I saw how that worked
out and I’m ready to do your will.”
That’s what Isaiah said.
He said, “I’m an unclean man with unclean
lips, but if you’ll take that coal and touch
my lips, I’ll speak for you, because holy,
holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
So here I am; I’ll go.”
Moses stood at a bush.
He turned aside, took off his shoes, and said,
“God, I’m slow of speech.
I’m not eloquent, and you saw the things I
did that put me in this predicament, but if
it’s you calling, here I am.”
Jeremiah said, “I’m too young for this and
your people are stubborn and you know they’re
not going to listen, but if it’s you calling
me, here I am.”
The reason I’m confused about my calling is
because I don’t just have one.
This is what I didn’t know in my 20s.
I felt like God called me to preach.
Have you ever felt like God called you to
do something, put you somewhere?
I mean, maybe it wasn’t something big and
spectacular.
Maybe you’re not going to do a halftime show
at the Super Bowl with it, but God called
you to do something.
There’s a blessing in it, even if it’s a small
thing.
You say, “Okay, God called me to do this.”
But then what happens…
I was called to preach, so I started preaching.
I started going around preaching.
I’m preaching everywhere.
I’m preaching everywhere they asked me to
come preach.
I’m preaching at the lock-in.
I preached one time so late at night…
It was 3:00 a.m.
I had this sermon illustration where I would
take a mirror and break the mirror.
I preached Genesis 1:26 about the image of
God.
Holly can tell you we knew where the mirrors
were in every Walmart in the state of South
Carolina, because every time we’d get to a
new little town to preach to 15 kids I’d go
in and get a mirror, and then I’d break it
with a hammer and say, “This is what sin does
to you.”
You know, put the condemnation on the young
people.
Just put it on them hard.
Breaking mirrors.
One boy went to the emergency room because
the glass flew up and hit him in the eye.
I had to call his parents and tell them not
to sue me.
“I’m a man of God, and I have a ministry,
and if you sue me God is going to curse you.”
I didn’t say that.
But I was running around preaching.
Then I married Holly, and I realized I’m called
to be her husband too.
It’s the conflict of calling.
It’s complicated.
You can make it sound simple.
“Find your calling.”
Which one?
Because then I was called to be a preacher
and a husband, and sometimes they needed different
techniques.
What if I walked home and said, “Holly, give
him a shout of praise!”
It’s different callings.
“Touch three people!”
She’s like, “It’s just us.”
Then by the time I’m getting these callings…
How many of you have at least two callings
in your life, at least two things you’re responsible
for, and they’re in conflict sometimes?
Here she comes pregnant.
Four years into marriage, here she turns up
pregnant.
Now I’m called to be a parent.
Do you ever feel like you’re not just putting
on different hats but you actually have different
heads?
I read that in that Sittser book, The Will
of God as a Way of Life.
He said, “I felt like I didn’t just have different
hats; I had different heads.”
This is the conflict of calling.
The answer is always availability, presence,
access.
When he said, “Speak, Lord; your servant is
listening,” it created access not only for
God’s word to come to him but for God’s word
to come through him.
What God said was difficult.
He said, “I’m transitioning.
Not only am I transitioning you from an apprentice
to a priest, from a priest to a prophet, but
I’m transitioning Eli and his sons out of
the earth so my purpose can be fulfilled.
I’m transitioning.
You’re going to have to go through a difficult
transition right now.”
By the time we get to 1 Samuel 4:1, the Bible
says, “Samuel’s word came to all Israel.”
I was curious why it didn’t say “God’s word
through Samuel,” but by this point in 1 Samuel
4, because Samuel said, “Here I am; speak,
Lord,” we have now gone from “The word of
the Lord was rare” to “The word of Samuel
came to all Israel.”
He had gotten to a point where he heard God’s
voice on the level, that when he spoke, what
he spoke came directly from the throne of
God.
God wants to get us to the place where we
are not running around all the time talking
about what we’re going to do one day.
Some of you are using the concept of a calling
as a crutch to not fully embrace the season
of life you’re in, and that is not the will
of God for you.
You may be called to be a mom one day, but
if you’re not a mom right now, can you say,
“Here I am” to this season?
You may be called to own your own business
one day, but can I just say that in the meantime
the only thing God has ever wanted from you
was all of you.
The only thing God has ever asked of you is
“Here I am.”
It’s what Jeremiah said.
It’s what Moses said.
It’s what Isaiah said.
It’s what Samuel said.
When he made himself available, the word of
God became abundant.