A Voice Spoken

It was in the darkness of the night that the young boy named Samuel heard a voice.  Had he not thought the voice was the voice of Eli, the priest who slept in the next room, he likely would have been scared beyond words.  As it was the young boy went to Eli to see what it was that the priest needed of him.  After Eli's sleep was disturbed the third time by this boy standing at his bed, the priest realized the Lord was speaking and told Samuel what to do.  "Go, lie down; and if He calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."  (I Samuel 3:9)  Samuel did as he was told and the Lord spoke once again to him.  

We do not hear the Voice when it is speaking.  Like Samuel it is something we are not expecting.  When it does happen, we are quick to find another explanation.  After all, the thought which came to our mind from out of nowhere was likely planted there sometime in the past and simply triggered to remembrance by some circumstance.  To think that God could be speaking to us through something or someone is beyond the scope of what is logical and believable.   

Of course, the Word, including this story of Samuel, tells a different thing.  And, the witness of more people than we can count who have lived before us and around us also affirm that God did not go silent when history closed the book on Biblical history.  Everything around us poinst to God's voice still being spoken, and if it is spoken, it can be heard by those of us who believe and who have disciplined inner ears to hear what cannot be heard with the ears of birth.