And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.” —1 Samuel 3:10
When the prophet Samuel was a young boy, God began speaking to him. God had a message that He wanted to give to Samuel, but Samuel didn’t understand. When he heard God’s voice, he mistook it for the voice of his mentor, Eli. Finally, Eli realized what was going on and gave Samuel a simple command: “The next time you hear the voice, say, ‘Speak, for your servant hears.’”
Once Samuel did that, he was able to hear God’s message and do as He said. He was able to be God’s servant.
Today, I’d like to look at Samuel’s response to God and how we can use it as an example in our own lives.
“Speak, for your servant is listening.”
We are all servants, or at least we should be. We should be serving God and serving other people. Jesus came to be a servant, and we should be trying to follow His example and the examples of other servants of God like Samuel.
servant — one who serves others
The big question is simple: What kind of servant are you? And how can you become a better servant and follow Jesus’s example?
Jesus cared about people, and he spent time with people who were not of much stature. He was criticized for the people he spent time with by those who weren’t concerned about being good servants.
But Jesus didn’t care. He was God, and He still wanted to serve even those no one else cared about. Isn’t that amazing?
So how do we serve God and others? I think the verse we started with provides us a pretty good template. Let’s break it down.
1. He speaks.
Service doesn’t actually start with us. It starts with God. He’s the one who tells us how we are to serve Him and others.
How does he tell us that? He uses several different methods:
- the Bible
- prayer
- the input of other believers
- through nature and His creation
God is alway speaking to His people, guiding them where and how He wants them to serve. That’s where we come in.
2. We listen.
God speaks to us many different ways, but we aren’t always the best at listening. If we want to serve Him well, we need to be open to His voice and respond to His calling when it comes.
Like Samuel, we can sometimes be confused by what we’re hearing. Maybe we don’t recognize it as God’s voice, or maybe we don’t want to listen because we don’t like what He has to say.
Either way, it’s our responsibility to listen for God’s voice and respond appropriately when He speaks. Otherwise, we won’t be able to serve Him.
3. We do.
Finally, we act on what He tells us to do.
James 1:22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” It’s not enough just to listen to God’s voice; we have to respond with action.
Sometimes, service looks like simply investing in other people—spending time with them, getting to know them, letting them know you care. It might mean serving together, doing something bigger than any of us could do on our own.
We never know what it is God’s going to call us to do. There was a time in my life when I never thought He’d call me to preach. And yet here I am, serving as a pastor to my church every week.
God knows what we’re best equipped for and how we can best serve Him and others in the world. When we listen to Him and do what He says, we can be great servants for Him.
When I think about good examples of serving God, I can’t help but think of Nate Saint. He was a missionary to Ecuador and part of a group that tried to evangelize the Huaorani people there. In the midst of their efforts, Nate and his fellow missionaries were killed trying to share Jesus with a group of people who had never heard of Him before.
Nate and his group cared about those people so much that they were willing to risk and, eventually, sacrifice their lives to tell them about Jesus. They knew what was at stake, and they went anyway. That’s a heart of service right there. The story is so inspiring that they even made a movie about it called End of the Spear. Maybe you’ve seen it.
I want a servant’s heart like that.
Recently, my kids threw me a surprise 60th birthday party. At the party, they all went around sharing stories about me. Some of them were funny, but they also shared stories about how I had touched their lives. No amount of money could pay for those stories I heard that day.
I tell you that because I want you to know this: You never know whose life you’re touching. You’ve just got to serve. If you listen to God’s voice and do what He says, you have no idea what kind of impact you can leave behind.
To your fitness!