“But Samuel ministered before the LORD, even as a child, wearing a linen ephod.  .. meanwhile the child Samuel grew before the LORD.  … And the child Samuel grew in stature, and in favor both with the LORD and men. … Now the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli…”  (1 Samuel 2:18, 21, 26; 3:1)

          The calling of Samuel in 1 Samuel is interesting in that, after all these verses in chapters 2 and 3, we come to this statement “(Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, nor was the word of the LORD yet revealed to him.)” vs. 7.  It is easy to glide by this seeming disconnect.  When I read vs. 7 I stopped and went back to chapters 2 and 3 to see if I had misread the earlier verses, but no, they really do proceed vs. 7.  That made me curious. “How is it, Lord, that Samuel was ministering before you and grew in Your favor yet he did not yet know You?” In the midst of my prayer, I believe God showed me that it is not all that unusual.  There are people all around us, ministering in His name but they do not actually KNOW Him.  In fact, as a teen, I was quite involved in my church youth group. My parents used to say I was their best hope for a nun in the family. Every Lent, I found something to give up and my family knelt in prayer together, all 8 of us, every day of Lenten season.  Yet, I knew OF God, but I did not KNOW Him, much like Samuel.  I would guess that most of our faithful Victory Call readers know God, but if you may be one that knows of Him or about Him but does not KNOW Him, may I encourage you to ask yourself, “Is God calling me to Himself?”  If so, you may want to respond “Speak, for your servant hears” (3:10). If you do this, please let me know. I would love to have a follow up conversation with you.

Blessings, Diane

Diane Hunt is part of the Development and Addiction Recovery teams at America’s Keswick.  In addition to being a Biblical Counselor, she is a Women’s speaker for retreats, conferences and events.  She is a regular writer for Victory Call and one of the authors of Crossing the Jordan Bible Study. She has been married to her husband John over 28 years.  She has 2 adult children and 3 grandchildren and 3 adult step-children with 7 grandchildren making 10 in all.  She delights reading and teaching, but mostly laughing at the funny things her grandchildren say and do.