Listening Without Expectations

When the boy Samuel was hearing a Voice in the night, he got some good counsel from his older mentor who was sleeping in the next room.  "Go, lie down; and if He calls you, you shall say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."  (I Samuel 3:9)  Samuel took Eli at his word, but this time as he went back into the darkness, he was surely "all ears."  No doubt every part of him, every one of his senses, was listening with an intensity never before known.  His ears and his heart were turned up so high, he likely heard divine breath being drawn to speak the Words.

 

It is a good prayer for any of us who are entering into a place in our spiritual life where we hunger and thirst to hear a Word from God.  The kind of listening being practiced by Samuel was not only an intense kind of listening, but it was also a listening without expectations.  Since this was the first time he had been in this kind of situation, he did not know what to expect.  The guidance of Samuel did not shape expectations, it only pointed to an experience of listening for whatever it was that the Lord might be about to say.

 

For those of us who must be in control, who have a hard time letting go and going with whatever, it is hard to just listen with no expectations.  Too often we have figured out what we think God should say, or we have decided what we want to hear.  Both of these spirits exclude the kind of listening prescribed by Eli.  It does take some practice and in the beginning we are likely to confuse what is within our own need to hear with what God wants to speak to us.  And while in this case, practice may not make perfect, it does put us on the road to learning how to listen for the Voice which still speaks to those who have ears to hear.