I don’t know how many times I think I hear things at night. Things that sound like voices or music. They seem real tangible until I turn off the white noises to really focus on what i’m hearing, only to realize it’s the white noise creating these sounds. The same is true when I haven’t turned on the fan either. I hear noises that I never hear when the white noise is turned on. Like last night I heard a train whistle. I didn’t even know we had a tracks close to our house. I wonder how often we think we hear God’s voice, for it only to be the other noises louder in our life? Or maybe we miss God’s voice all together because the white noises in our life drown out His voice?
The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was.
-1 Samuel 3:3
As I was reading 1 Samuel 3 the other day, I was reminded that no matter how close to God we are, if we have things in our life that we are focused on, it will always drown out His voice. Samuel was sleeping next to the Ark of God in the tabernacle (You can’t get much closer than that!). He was so close to God that he could hear Him, but wasn’t focused enough to know where it was coming from. When we aren’t focused on Jesus, His promptings can look and sound like they are coming from the wrong source.
Are we hearing God, but missing out because of where our focus is at?
Social media is a very easy source to get super focused on. When i’m scrolling, I can sometimes miss out on a lot of things around me. When I come out of the “scroll trance” I realize i’ve wasted way too much time on the things that don’t matter and missed out on things that do. My kids may have asked me a question but I didn’t really hear them to give them a response. I wonder if that’s why we don’t hear when God’s giving us direction in our lives because we’re too focused on things that don’t really matter? It isn’t until we put our focus on Jesus, that we can hear His voice with clarity and hear His true direction without the white noises drowning them out.
Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. 9 So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
– 1 Samuel 3:8b-9
Another thing I noticed as I read the passage was that Samuel’s focus wasn’t redirected until he got direction from someone else. Every time Samuel heard God’s voice, he would run to Eli thinking he needed his assistance. But on the 3rd time Eli realizes God was trying to talk to Samuel and gave him instructions on what to do. It makes me wonder if maybe we don’t hear God’s voice because we aren’t surrounding ourselves with the people we need in our lives to help us refocus? If Eli wasn’t sensitive to God’s calling, would Samuel have had an encounter with Jesus? The people in our lives play such an important role in our walk with Jesus. Make sure you have friends/family in your life that are helping you get closer to Him. Maybe you need an Eli in your life that gives you direction, or maybe you’re the one that needs to give the direction to someone else. Regardless, we need to make sure we’re focused on the right sources in our lives to live out what God has in store for all of us.
