Dear Friend,
Samuel was a boy who lived in the temple. He slept near the ark of God and served under Eli the priest, and he knew the house of the Lord the way you know your own kitchen in the dark. And when God called his name in the night, Samuel did not recognize the voice. He ran to Eli instead. Three times.
Scripture tells us plainly why: "The boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD in the presence of Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision" (1 Samuel 3:1, ESV). And again: "Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him" (1 Samuel 3:7, ESV).
Pause on that a moment. You can live in the house and still miss the voice. You can know the songs and the stories and still not know when God is speaking to you. Familiarity is not the same as hearing.
Perhaps that is closer to your story than you would like to admit. You read the Bible most days. You keep the habit, you finish the chapter, you close the Book — faithful, regular, and somehow untouched. The words passed before your eyes, but you were not really expecting God to say anything to you. Reading had become something to get done, the way you pay a bill or answer an email — a duty kept, not a voice heard.
If that is you, this letter is for you most of all. The question is not whether you read. It is whether you read expecting to hear. When you close the Book, have you heard from Him — or only finished your reading?
The psalmist knew this urgency. "Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!" (Psalm 95:6, ESV). "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness" (Psalm 95:7–8, ESV). Pause here, and you'll see the connection: approaching God (vs. 6) goes together with listening for His voice (vs. 7–8). The barrier to hearing from Him is a hardened heart. This tells me that we all must soften our hearts and be prepared to hear from Him, not talk over Him.
Today. Not yesterday's obedience, not tomorrow's intention. Today, you come to Him — and the question is whether you will hear the words He has for you. For you. Not for a duty done. Not for a chapter finished. For you, His child, in His presence.
Samuel did not earn the voice. Eli simply taught him a posture. "Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant hears'" (1 Samuel 3:9, ESV). And when the call came a fourth time, Samuel said it: "Speak, for your servant hears" (1 Samuel 3:10, ESV). One sentence. No sermon attached. No lesson plan. Just availability, spoken out loud in the dark.
Think of it: the God of the universe, waiting for one boy's one sentence. He waits for yours the same way. That is the whole method, and it is almost embarrassingly small: you do not summon the voice. You make room for it, and you answer when it comes.
Elijah learned the same lesson on a mountain. Wind, earthquake, fire — and God was in none of them. "And after the fire the sound of a low whisper" (1 Kings 19:12, ESV). The voice you are listening for may not arrive the way you expect — not in the impressive or the urgent, but in the whisper, after the noise has spent itself.
Martha knew the other side of this. Her service was love, too — the Lord was a guest, and someone had to see to the meal. But Mary "sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching" (Luke 10:39, ESV), and Jesus said, "One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:42, ESV).
That does not mean your work does not matter. It means listening comes first, and the portion you receive by listening cannot be taken from you the way a task can. Service flows out of hearing. It cannot replace it.
So how do you know the voice when you hear it? Jesus gives you the picture: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27, ESV). Sheep recognize the shepherd's voice the way you recognize a voice you have lived near — not by a test, but by time spent close. And "he calls his own sheep by name" (John 10:3, ESV). He knows yours.
Let me set one gentle guardrail here, because I want you protected. God will never say to you, in a whisper, what contradicts what He has already said in Scripture. A voice that flatters your plans, or excuses what His Word calls sin, or tells you that you are the exception to a command — that is not His voice, however warm it sounds. His whispers always agree with His Word, because they come from the same mouth.
There is one more thing I want you to hear. Some seasons you will be still, and you will hear nothing you can name. That does not mean He is absent, and it does not mean you failed. Samuel heard nothing for years before that night in Shiloh, and he was still in the house, still serving, still His. Silence is not rejection. Sometimes the Shepherd is near and simply not speaking in sentences. Simply being there is still faithfulness. He has not left the room.
So here is the one small thing I am asking of you this week. Take one passage and give it ten minutes. A favorite psalm — 16, 23, 91, or one of your own. Or the chapter of Proverbs for today's date — there are thirty-one chapters, one for each day of the month, so today's date always gives you one. Or a single story from Jesus' life — read it slowly, as if you were standing in the room. No notebook open. No checkbox to tick. No performance. Just you, and Him, and ten minutes that belong to no one else. Ask one question, and let the answer be for you alone: Lord, what are You saying to me?
If the only thing you carry away from those ten minutes is that you were with Him, that is enough. It was enough for Samuel. It is enough for you.
He is not impatient while you learn to listen. He is the Shepherd whose voice you are learning, and He is glad to be heard by you. You do not have to earn His attention. You already have it.
Grace & Peace,
Pastor Neal Letteney <><
The Pastor’s Hearth
Before you leave the fire, I invite you to consider these three questions:
When you open God's Word, what are you usually hoping to walk away with — and is any of it for you alone?
Where in your week could you give one passage ten minutes with no box to tick and nothing to prove when you're done?
Is there a word you sense God has already spoken — in Scripture, plainly — that you have been slow to face because it asks something of you?
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You know I'm on board with this message. Love your heart, Neal.