I'll keep reading Children's Spirituality and blogging about it but I seem to have lost most of my readers. LOL! Either they're still recovering from the holidays or this is boring. :-)
This is something else I've wanted to do with the blog - to take scriptures about kids and make observations and see what the Holy Spirit will reveal. Something I love about the Word, no matter how often I read a passage, there's always more to see.
I revisited the story of God calling Samuel (NIrV) this morning. Having recently read about African-American communities encouraging spirituality in their children, the differences over decision and journey (though I don't know that those are mutually exclusive), the importance of relationships in ministering to children, some things jump out at me. Here are some things to ponder. Just observations.
Samuel is given into Eli's charge but God is going to judge the man for the way he raised his own sons. It appears that he was too lenient. He let them mock God. He didn't stop them. Yet we've been taught that Samuel came to Eli as an obedient child. Eli hadn't trained his own sons to be obedient children, so I wonder if Samuel came to Eli more out of relationship than out of obedience.
vs. 7 "Samuel didn't know the Lord yet. That's because the Lord still hadn't given him a message." I wonder if teaching children to "hear" God (to listen for Him and to respond to His words) is crucial to their knowing Him and growing in faith.
vs 18 "So Samuel told him everything. He didn't hide anything from him." I wonder if it was training that made him do this or whether it was relational. I wonder. Maybe there is no either/or.
When Samuel came to Eli hearing voices and Eli sent him back to listen again and to respond to the Lord, Eli was taking a chance. It turned out that Samuel came back with something Eli probably didn't want to hear. Maybe it was something he already knew, he was a priest. Yet Eli received God's message from the child saying, "He is the Lord. Let him do what he thinks is best. " vs. 18
Then the scriptures say, vs 19 - 20 "As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him. He made everything Samuel said come true." I wonder. . . what if Eli hadn't taken the boy seriously. What if Eli hadn't listened?
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This is our lectionary text for Sunday. We have been discussing it around the office for a little while. Its pretty fascinating when you read about God calling a boy who didn't know Him.
ReplyDeleteWe've looked at a lot of different things in the passage, but one that seems to rise consistently for me is that God called Samuel by "standing" in his presence. I wonder what God is calling me to do by standing in my presence. I was meditating on this the other day and in my mind's eye I could visibly see someone standing before me. It was a very powerful experience.
I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this passage.
Powerful, indeed!
ReplyDeleteIt is profound to think of Samuel growing up in God's presence and not knowing Him until He spoke and not even knowing him when he spoke. Eli even had to send him back three times so apparently it was an out of the ordinary event, even among priests in the temple.
I almost added that it was interesting that they'd let a boy sleep beside the ark. People died touching the ark and you know how kids are about touching things! But the priests could carry the ark so maybe that wasn't a big deal. Apparently Samuel lived a long time!
But the thing that struck me is that the story is so often used to teach children about listening and being obedient but what if Eli hadn't given Samuel the time of day? What if Eli hadn't been listening to Samuel and didn't realize that God was speaking to the child? Would verses 19-20 have come to pass in Samuel's life or did Eli's paying attention facilitate that?
It's not like there are neccessarily answers to these questions but it makes me interact with God's story more.
I actually commented in the exact same way about the kid sleeping with the Ark. I couldn't believe it!
ReplyDeleteVery great questions about Eli. I think that there are powerful lessons for some of the older ones to learn concerning a church's embracing of God calling children even OVER the elderly. There are very profound things to be talked about in then.
Glad to see you are looking into this. Keep it coming. Is this your text for Sunday?