Calling as at Other Times

Have you ever been in a conversation and you realize the person you’re talking to knows your name, but you can’t for the life of you remember theirs?

This is a chronic scenario in my life.

My husband and I are in an exciting time of trying to remember new names and new faces everywhere we go!

Matt is a name person. He can remember names of people whether he just met them or they happened to ask to borrow his squeegee at the gas station 3 years ago and struck up a conversation. He can rattle off entire rosters of football players and I wouldn’t be surprised if he listed the 6th-27th presidents of the United States.

But faces are not his strong suit.

I’m the opposite. I can pick out a face no problem! Putting a name with that face however, is another story.

So together, my husband and I are an unstoppable team meeting new people and remembering their names!

But, apart can cause some issues. Out of the 3 weeks we’ve lived here, I think I’ve called someone by the wrong name about as many times as I’ve gotten someone’s name correct.

Thankfully everyone has been very gracious when I confidently guess wrong!

My problem is I subconsciously connect everyone’s name to the color they’re wearing when I meet them. Unfortunately, people don’t wear the same outfits every day! So when I see them in a different color, my mind completely blanks on their name!

About 6 years ago when my husband and I first moved to Ohio, I was convinced any man in their 50s-70s wearing an orange shirt was named Dave for a good couple of weeks.

I’ve just come to accept it’s going to take me a while to ever get people’s names right.

After I mistakenly renamed a person I recently met the other day, I thought to myself, “If only everyone wore the same color every time I saw them, I would have an easier time recognizing them!”

Then, I got to thinking how grateful I am that God never changes.

Yes, we learn new attributes about Him all the time and shows different parts of Himself to us as we grow closer in our relationship with Him. But, He Himself never changes. He stays the same.

This is a crucial truth as we are learning to listen for and recognize His voice in our lives.

We see this when He calls out to Samuel for the fourth time in the same night.

“And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.” Then the Lord said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.” 1 Samuel 3:10-11 (ESV)

Notice God called out to Samuel “as at other times”. He didn’t change the way he spoke to Samuel as he was trying to learn God’s voice.

Actually, He repeated the same words over and over.

If you look back through this story, the only word Samuel has heard from God up to this point is his own name, “Samuel”. So, after he went to Eli and Eli told him that this was God speaking to him, Samuel only knew what he had heard before to be God.

God repeated his call for Samuel the same way Samuel had learned God’s voice in his very little experience of hearing Him.

God is gracious in that He knows how we will hear Him. Even though Samuel had never heard God speak before, he had learned what it sounded like when God called his name and God continued to communicate to him using the one word Samuel knew to be God.

He didn’t hide Himself from Samuel while he was figuring out how to know when God was speaking to him. And He won’t hide Himself from us as we seek to hear Him ourselves.

Remember His promise in Jeremiah:

“When you seek me, you will find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV)

He faithfully remained the same- and once Samuel recognized what he was hearing, he responded and listened.

At one point my own husband’s voice was indistinguishable among others to me. If I didn’t see his face, I wouldn’t have known who was talking. But as I spent time with him, listening to him, learning what he sounds like, now I know he’s down the hallway around the corner just by hearing him clear his throat once.

But, imagine if while I was still trying to get to know my husband, he changed his phone number and voice every time we talked. It’d feel impossible to learn what he sounds like!

Thankfully, I don’t need my husband to announce “Hi, it’s Matt Parker” every time he calls now. If I did that would show I never really took the time to learn his voice.

I can be confident that he is going to stay the same when he talks to me. Just like I can be confident God isn’t disguising or hiding Himself as I’m learning His voice.

And as we grow in learning when God’s speaking to us, we grow in confidence in the different ways we hear Him.

Over time, Samuel grew and knew God’s voice for himself. He didn’t always need to lean on Eli to tell him when he was hearing from God and how to listen. Eventually, the life God had for him depended on hearing His voice and bringing it to the people as a spiritual leader and judge over them.

God is infinitely creative in how He communicates with His children. Through His word, through the people in our lives, through the things that happen in our day- even through the hardships and trials we unexpectedly face.

But, He is patient and all-knowing, giving us time and opportunity to listen, learn, grow in confidence, and continue learning.

From one of His children to another,

Christi