We should focus on listening. As important as it is to speak, before we can do so, we need to listen. Indeed there must be a lot of listening before there can be any speaking. We need to know what the Lord has revealed about himself in his Word. We need to understand what he has revealed, and we need to submit our lives to what he has revealed. And for that to happen we must be convinced that it requires hard work and is not something that comes naturally. In our sinful natures, we have this mistaken idea that we know what is best and we do not need input from others, certainly not from God. We have inherited this way of thinking from Adam and Eve. There in the Garden, they rejected God’s revelation; they did not listen to him.

Thankfully, by his Spirit, the Lord is changing us and working in us, but it remains our natural tendency to close our ears to God’s truth and forget what he has said. That is why listening is work—it is hard work. It begins with prayer: asking the Holy Spirit to help us whenever we read from God’s Word. He needs to open our eyes and ears. He needs to soften our hearts if we are going to hear what God says. Then there is discipline. We are not going to listen if we are tired and sleepy when God’s Word is preached. If we stay up until the early hours of the morning, we are not going to remember much of the sermon. Also if we are distracted in other ways—maybe it is travel plans, work, or conflict in the home. If our hearts and minds are overloaded with troubles and cares, it is very hard to hear what anyone else is saying. We are also not going to listen if we think we have nothing to learn. If we come to a passage of Scripture which we have read before, we can sometimes think we know it already and so we stop concentrating.

We are not going to listen if we think that hearing God’s Word is a right and not a privilege. Remember, nothing and no one forced God to reveal himself to Israel, to you, and to me. It was his gracious decision—the promises he made to Adam and Eve after the Fall, the call to Abraham out of Babylon, the words to Moses from the burning bush and to Israel through Samuel. All the revelation which we have been given is a privilege and not a right. A privilege which you and I enjoy but many others do not. Wherever God’s Word is read, faithfully explained and applied, we have the privilege of hearing God speak to us. How will we respond to this privilege? Will we listen to him? Will we prioritize his Word? Will we study it and grow in our understanding? Will we do what it says?

Christian believers belong to Jesus Christ and share in his anointing. If we are going to be faithful prophets in our day and age, we need to be ready to listen before we speak. Maybe that is one of the reasons why the Lord called Samuel in the early hours of the morning—a time where he was quiet so that he could listen.