I Samuel 9:21 Saul answered, "But am I not a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me?"
Am I not the least? Don't ask or expect anything from me. I don't have any special talent. I'm just an average girl who just wants to get married and have babies. As a teacher, Dean and counselor, I've heard it all, and if it makes me sad, I wonder how it makes God feel. He knit us together before we were born, pulling all the threads together to fit us for the work He has for us to do.
I wonder how many presidents, how many CEO's, how many teachers, how many pastors could say that. "I'm just a nobody from nothing." But they had a vision of what hard work and ambition could produce. And some of them had a vision for how God could use them. And who has the right to call God's handiwork a nobody anyway?
Well, that's one thing I wanted to say today!
My other thought came from yesterday's reading from I Samuel 3:10, The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, "Samuel, Samuel." Then Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."
Smith asks whether, though we may hear, do we really listen? He also makes the statement that learning to listen is a sign of maturity. I fear we have a lot of immature people, and some of them are well over 40. I think listening is an act of love and respect, of unselfishness. So we certainly need to learn to be better listeners to each other.
Then we must learn how to be still enough to not only say, "Speak Father for I am listening," but wait long enough to hear what God has to say. If we are rude to other humans, as I often put it, listening with our answer running, are we any less rude to God? I hear people all the time rationalize an unwise decision saying, "I prayed about it." The problem was not in the praying, but in the listening.
Oh God, help us to be better listeners.
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