This morning early as I was reading and praying I had the sliding door open to the fresh air and the truck stereo of the worker in the alley was playing music…loudly! It wasn’t even 8:00 am! I tried so hard to ignore the sounds but finally had to shut the door and blessed quiet peace returned. Later in prayer, He reminded me this quiet sacred space is good but don’t despair of the noise and the life teeming around you. God loves His creation and that includes us…noise and all!

In 1 Samuel 3, I read a verse I hadn’t considered in that way before. Samuel is ministering before the Lord and is sleeping in the house of the Lord when he hears a voice calling to him not once but 3 times. Each time he gets up and goes to Eli to let him know he is here for him. At the 3rd time, Eli realizes the voice calling him is the Lord. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions. v. 1. Can you imagine what Eli thought? He’s the High Priest and yet God is calling a boy. Samuel didn’t know it was God or that He would call to him. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” v. 9. Eli realized it was to Samuel that the Lord was calling and he directed Samuel to the Lord. The verse I hadn’t considered before? The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” v. 10. It doesn’t say that Samuel could see the Lord, just that He came and stood there as He called Samuel.

I don’t know this morning if it was the distracting noise of the music or if it was the distracting noise in my soul, but sometimes I feel like I can’t connect fully with God. The barrier isn’t God resisting me but me resisting somehow. I confessed my distracted sense of being and the weight I felt, and asked Him to help me. Almost like a lane in the gloom, I could see a path and feel His Presence. I was able to inhabit the place I love best…being with God. There is such peace here. That’s when He reminded me He loves the noise as well as the peace.

This coming Sunday will be Easter Sunday, the day we commemorate Jesus rising from death to life. He didn’t shun the world or the noise when He walked this earth with us. He was right in the middle of it and He loved. He loved people others looked down on. He tried to love the ones doing the looking down but they resisted.

What He is beginning to show me is that I need to live this life fully now not waiting for a time when He will return and “make all things right”. He is with me now and He loves me and He loves you. This life, this beautiful, noisy, chaotic life is given to us by a Father who loves us and will be with us as we navigate through experiences good and bad. It’s in the experiences, all of them, that we grow.

As I read yesterday in the book Out of the Embers, by Bradley Jersak, salvation is not a one time event at the end of our life on this earth but rather is our life lived on this earth. God is so very patient. Be at peace with Him as He calls us to be at peace with one another. Does that mean be weighted down with the cares and sins of the world? No. Trust God. Trust His Love for Everything.

Why did God speak to Samuel? God is telling Samuel, a boy, that He is going to do something new. Isn’t that how God works? Isn’t every instance where He intervenes something new and never seen before? “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family – from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons blasphemed God (made themselves contemptible), and he failed to restrain them. Therefore I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’” v. 11-14. The sacrifices of animals Eli and his sons offered before the Lord would never be able to atone for the wrong they were doing as they were making those sacrifices. Only one sacrifice could atone not only for Eli and his sons, but for you and me. God, Himself, provided that sacrifice and He did it because He loves us. And as He was on the very instrument of His death by those He loves, He forgave. He loved them and loves them still just as He loves us and died for us. Can you imagine that kind of love? That’s the only kind of love that will heal all of us.

Can you imagine how Samuel felt after hearing this from God? Of course Eli wanted to know because, again, in those days the word of the Lord was rare. Samuel tells Eli everything. Then Eli said, “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.” v. 18. What is good in His eyes! His love!

Samuel continued to hear from the Lord and all Israel knew that Samuel was a prophet of God. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. And Samuel’s word came to all Israel. v. 21.

All of our lives are the ground through which we learn and grow and experience everything. Hope, despair, love, hate, forgiveness, hardness of heart, laughter, tears – all of it. Those experiences shape us into the people we are. And, we are not alone. Ever. The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times. Do we hear? Do we listen?