Prayer is a good thing, and most people don’t pray enough. It’s interesting to me when I talk to people who are drifting away from God – one of the most common things they say to me is this: “But I pray all the time.” But is praying to God the same as listening to God? The answer is no - it’s the opposite. Is the Word of the Lord rare in your life? How often do you listen to the Word of the God? How often are you able to come to public worship? What about in your own private life? Is the Word of the Lord rare in your private life? Are you too busy to have a private devotional life with God? Are you too proud, too self-reliant – “I’ve just never done that sort of thing before – I don’t read the Word of God on my own.” Or maybe you do, but it’s very quick, not much thought goes into it, because you need to get on with those more important things of life. And so, the Word of the Lord was rare at that time. The last thing they had time for was listening to a prophet speak the Word of God to them. People were too busy with their own lives, too busy breaking God’s commands. No one was interested in listening to God, hearing his Word. Why would God do that? Why would God keep himself from his people? Well, when you study the history of the nation of Israel at that time, you learn that these people were very wicked. We are told in verse 1 that in “those days, the word of the Lord was rare there were no visions.” In other words, God was choosing not to speak to his people. Today we meet the prophet Samuel, when he was a little boy who worked in the temple under the supervision of a man named Eli. May God bless you these next few moments as you listen to God speak to you through his Word. Today we learn how important it is, and what a blessing it is, when we listen to Christ, when we listen to his Word. Remember, this is the Epiphany season, that time in the church year when Jesus reveals his glory, and lets people see his grace and mercy and love and forgiveness. Today we find out how important listening is, when it comes to your relationship with God. But listening? That’s a difficult thing to do. Many adults become restless school children during the 17 minutes that a sermon takes place. Even though they can go for hours at work without going to the bathroom, they have to get up every two minutes and head off to the bathroom during the sermon. There might be no better example of poor listening than what happens during a sermon. These things exist because people naturally are not good listeners. There is actually a Listening Association that you can join- to help you improve your listening skills. You can buy videos that help you become better listeners. But for many many people, listening is a problem. There doesn’t seem to be much to the art of listening – you just sit there and nod your head at the appropriate times. One activity that human beings really aren’t very good at is listening. 1 Samuel 3:1-10 SPEAK LORD, FOR YOUR SERVANT IS LISTENING.
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