The Call of a Child

This morning, I was treated to the unexpected delight of hearing my daughter read from the Bible.  As a first grader, she is required to read so many minutes per day, and this morning's selection was from I Samuel, chapter 3... God's call to the boy-to-become-prophet, Samuel.

As I drank my morning coffee and listened to the voice of my daughter, I was taken back to my own childhood, when that very same passage jumped off of the page to me, aiding in God's call on my own life toward ministry and the service of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Memories of time with the Lord by flashlight, waking all too early to pray, and read, and listen for the voice of God as I struggled to stay awake, flooded back through my heart and mind as the smell of freshly brewed coffee danced through my nostrils and my daughter led me unknowingly into the ethers of the past.

I listened as she read, "And word from the LORD was rare in those days; visions were infrequent." (v.1*) and I noticed as the she said aloud, "and the lamp of God had not yet gone out" (v.2*) as I wondered at the state of the Gospel in this all-too-modern and self-enlightened age.

I wondered if I had remained long enough in the shadow of the presence of God, as Samuel was doing... and of course, I feared that I have not.  I wondered if the lamp of the Gospel was ablaze or dimmed today.  I wondered what movement of God my children might see in their life-times, or if the voice of Heaven has had enough of our self-defining generations.

My course was set so many years ago beside the ark of the New Covenant of God, the Cross of Christ.  Though all has changed around me in so many ways, and so many times, the word of the LORD remains forever and unchanged.

The ups and downs of the life of Samuel the Prophet are recorded for history to remember and for generations to recall... what then shall be the call of God upon my children?  To love the LORD our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, as Mark so aptly records is to all of us the first and greatest commandment (Mark 12:29-30), and such is the life we are called to live... oh, that my life would render the Word of the LORD to my children, and to their children's children to the thousandth generation.  Oh that the LORD might be to them as He is and has been to their father, and even more-so, that they might know the beauty of His holiness, and the unparalleled joy of His service.  On these simple things hang my life and my hopes for them.  On these, in the end, have I set my course at His call.

Perhaps in days and years to come, Jordan will remember what she read this morning, and the voice of the LORD might call to her as to Samuel, even as He did to her father these many years past.

Perhaps she will find even deeper joy in His service than I have known.  Maybe generations will breed contentment expounded in the presence of the Almighty God.

In the Peace of Christ and for His Service,

Pastor John

*NASB