Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:1

The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.

Thought for the Day: I’ve always found this to be an interesting story. I doubt the word of the Lord was rare. God is constantly speaking; one need only look around the world to hear God’s beautiful voice in the wonder of nature. God speaks through the stars, through the formation of galaxies, through a bee gathering honey and a blade of grass wet with morning dew. God is revealed in the small courtesies of strangers. God is constantly speaking.

The problem is that, like Samuel in this story, we’re not actively listening. We don’t genuinely expect to hear God speak to us—that’s something reserved for Moses or Jesus or Mohammed! This is a dangerous misperception, and it’s also somewhat of a cop-out. If the voice of God is only reserved for “special” people, then my responsibility to God (and through God to the world) is alleviated. We think, “I’m not special, why would God want to talk to me?” and we breathe a sigh of relief, because who needs the responsibility of a Noah or a Buddha? We might actually be a little afraid to listen for God, because deep down we know it will change our lives forever.

Our hearing problem has been exacerbated by the progress of science and technology. It’s hard to believe in an underlying consciousness to reality, much less believe that conscious presence might want to communicate with us—might actually care about us, when we understand creation on a sub-molecular level. But that’s because religions still generally portray God on a macro, rather than micro-level. God is out there doing things. Yet the science of Quantum Physics itself seems to be a communication from God, a message we can receive now that we do understand the natural world more deeply. And that message, if we’ll only listen for it, is this: “I AM still speaking, and I AM with you, more intimately than you have ever imagined. I AM all there is, was, or ever will be. I AM you and your neighbor, the trees in your backyard and the stars in the sky. I AM the atoms and the stuff that makes the atoms. I AM conscious, and you are conscious because I AM.”

Prayer: Open my ears to Your voice, my heart to Your love, and my mind to the possibility that there is more to the universe than meets my ears or my eyes.  Amen.