I was thinking about the reading last week about young Samuel and his teacher, Eli. I was thinking that God had a sense of humour! Samuel is sleeping in the Temple when God calls him. Samuel thinks it is old Eli, so he gets up and goes to him, waking Eli up. Eli sends Samuel back to bed. This happens three times before it occurs to Eli that it might be God calling, trying to talk to the boy, Samuel.
I was thinking about that interrupted sleep the other night! Katie, my new puppy, gets me up, sometimes several times, to go out during the night.
At first when Katie came, I would take her outside and wait for her to do her business. She would whimper and whine. I had on my jacket, jeans and my long nightie, and was glad of the jeans and boots! Katie was so cold she was trying to climb up my jeans to get under the warmth of the nightie. She didn’t understand what I wanted, just that she wanted to get back inside into the warm house! After a day or so, she figured out what I was waiting for her to do, and then we both got back inside a lot faster!
As the weather warms, and she gets bigger and more adventuresome, she has now started to want to explore and play when she goes outside. I’m glad she is getting bolder, but I’m not really interested in playing outside in the snow at 4 in the morning! She gets distracted. It is beautiful out there, with the moonlight glistening off the pristine snow in my backyard, but I’d really rather be sleeping!
Sometimes we are like Katie. We know that God wants something, but we’re really not certain exactly what it is. We can listen to what God is saying, but sometimes our own lack of understanding either gets us doing things that God doesn’t want, or we try by trial and error to figure out what God’s asking.
When Katie does something I want her to do, I praise her and sound like I am really happy. Sometimes I even give her a treat. I wonder if God does that with us sometimes? Trying really hard to get our attention to let us know how pleased God is? See that beautiful sunset? That is for us! The sunrise that we missed? God painted it that way just for us! Those little snowdrops that are waiting for us under the snow? The ones we’ll probably walk right past without noticing? God put them there for us! God is trying to let us know what God wants, but sometimes we just aren’t listening.
But like when Katie figured out what I was wanting her to do, we can get God’s message, if we just keep paying attention. Then, like Samuel, when Eli told him that it was God, we can answer, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening!”
