Calling All Elis!

Hello!

I’ve taken the last few weeks off from writing as our family has ventured through the process of moving our life to Nebraska. It’s been a whirlwind of a few weeks filled with hard goodbyes, new excitement, and God providing for our discovered needs big and small along the way.

I’m thankful to be slowly settling into our new normal and back writing!

The goal of my last post was to encourage those of us who are seeking to learn and grow deeper into hearing God speak in our lives. My prayer is that this has been the inspirational push you needed to prayerfully reach out to someone around you!

This week, I would like to take time to encourage those of you who have been walking with the Lord for a long time now.

Many of you have been seeking and hearing God’s voice in your lives for years. You know what it’s like to hear God speaking to you; just as Eli did.

Would you be willing to take time this week asking Him to open your eyes and heart to those around you who are seeking and searching for Him?

Would you be willing to allow Him to use you as an Eli in someone else’s life?

This is no light, easy task.

And it is something you most definitely cannot do in your own strength or knowledge.

It takes very special, willing hearts who are sensitive to the whisper of God and dedicated to helping those He’s placed in their lives.

As I considered this for myself, my initial response was excuse after excuse flooding my mind.

And as He usually does, God conquered each of my reactive excuses in reading Eli’s interaction with Samuel.

“And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the young man. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.'” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.” 1 Samuel 3:8-9 (ESV)

First, time is a fleeting luxury these days. It’s easy to push something God has for me to do right now off with thinking, “I’ll do it when I have more time and I can put more focus on it.”

But, time with nothing to do is rarely going to just show up.

Pretty soon days, weeks, months go by and we forget about it and move on.

God convicted me these past few weeks that if He puts something on my heart to do, I need to make the time, instead of waiting for the time to come on its own.

This isn’t always going to look or feel perfectly natural.

Notice that when Eli helped Samuel recognize God’s voice in his own life, Samuel’s timing was anything but convenient.

We can’t choose when the right time to help someone is going to be.

In our new home, my boys are getting used to sleeping on a different floor than mom and dad. And it’s taking me some time to get used to it, too.

It’s not as convenient as it used to be to get to the boys’ rooms in the middle of the night.

Ace has been particularly struggling at night when he wakes up scared and confused about being in a new place. So it wasn’t a shock the other night when he woke up crying at 2am and needed someone to come help settle him down.

Unfortunately, something happens to me at night.

My depth perception is comically hideous when I climb out of bed in the dark. I used to be able to get away with walking and feeling my way around in our old home with Ace’s bedroom right across the hallway. But now, I need to walk through the house and down some stairs.

A recipe for midnight disaster!

I’ve stubbed my toe on some random unpacked box, or once on the freezer chest, and genuinely entertained the thought for a split second in my groggy state that I’m just going to lay down here and sleep on the basement floor for the rest of the night.

I don’t want to get out of bed to put my blurry balance and sore toes through another test down the stairs to Ace’s room.

But then I hear my son crying.

The inconvenience to get to Ace at night has dramatically increased, but that doesn’t mean he needs my help any less.

If I waited to go down to help him until it was conveniently morning when I was awake with my contacts in, and the sunlight lighting the way down the stairs, my presence wouldn’t be nearly as helpful to him anymore.

Samuel needed Eli in the middle of the night while Eli was trying to sleep.

Yet, once Eli realized God was speaking to Samuel, he took the time to help guide him regardless.

Sometimes the most impactful time God wants to use us in someone’s life is just going to be inconvenient timing.

My other genuine excuse for not reaching out to a “Samuel” around me was feeling inadequate to lead someone else in hearing God. Honestly, I have days I’m questioning if I’m really hearing what He’s saying to me correctly.

In my mind, if I don’t have all the answers, that makes me unqualified to help someone else.

But the bible doesn’t say Eli was the perfect hearer and follower of God. In fact, we learn that he had really messed up when it came to teaching and disciplining his own sons in following God. Yet, God still used him in Samuel’s journey of getting to know God’s voice in his own life.

And it hit me.

When I discount how God wants to use me because I feel unqualified and inadequate, I’m actually discounting God and calling Him not enough to do what He says He wants to do in and through me.

Through this lens, telling God no because I’m afraid I’m not enough is no longer masked in what seemed humble. It’s doubting the God who I know is all-powerful and all-knowing by telling Him He’s wrong about me.

In reality, I’m calling Him inadequate.

I am so guilty of this.

It wasn’t Eli’s job to make Samuel hear what God was saying in his life, translate it, and force him to respond correctly.

All Eli did was point out that God was speaking and advised Samuel to stop and listen.

It was Samuel’s responsibility to take the time to listen and respond.

And it was God’s responsibility to speak to Samuel what He wanted him to hear.

I get caught up in needing to know every answer and be capable of filling every piece of the puzzle before I walk into something. But that’s not my job. It’s my responsibility to step out and follow when God asks me to step into someone else’s life.

It’s God’s job to follow through with the rest.

The only qualification we know about that Eli had was that he knew God’s voice for himself. Eli could perceive when God was talking to Samuel because he himself knew when God was talking to him.

Is that you? Are you willing to be an Eli for someone God points out around you?

Finding the time and leaning into confidence that God can use us regardless of how prepared or qualified we feel are always going to be hurdles we all come up against. But let’s not let them become brick wall excuses causing us to miss out on God using how He’s equipped us to help those around us.

The church is filled with Samuels. We need Elis to step up.

From one of His children to another,

Christi