Wednesday, July 26, 2005

Good Morning!

The new unit for this week is Unit 13, Preventing Grace

Focus Scripture for the Week: Acts 2:17

I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.

Today's Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:2-18

Today's Discussion:

-- back to the Old Testament. Quick summary of the context -- Eli was the high priest of Israel, and Samuel was one of his assistants. Eli had two sons who were also his assistants, but they were corrupt in their execution of their priestly responsibilities, they took more from the sacrificial offerings than they were supposed to (essentially, stealing from God), cheating other people, and sleeping with the women who were also servants at the Tent. All the way around, they were bad guys, and Eli was unable and/or unwilling to do anything about them.

-- this scripture is essentially about God coming to Samuel and letting him know that God was going to severely deal with Eli's sons.

-- for the purposes of this week's lesson, to me this is about giving us an example of how God might call out to us. In the case of Samuel, he wasn't quite expecting God to talk to him, so he assumed that it was Eli calling him. Once he understood that God was talking to him, he simply said "here I am" and listened to what God's message was. And notice that God came to speak to Samuel in the evening as he was laying down in the still of the night.

-- I think we have a couple of takeaways from this reading -- one is that we need to be listening for God to talk to us -- Samuel wasn't listening for God originally, he was listening for Eli. We miss God talking to us many times because we are intentionally or unintentionally not listening for him. Second, note that God often speaks to us when our souls and body and mind are still. That is one of the reasons that our template for the study is about finding a quiet place and spending some quiet time in contemplation, so that we can listen for what God is saying to us.

Question for Sunday:

-- How and where do you listen for God?

Today's prayer request: Alex Lloyd, Monica's nephew

Haven't heard any updates on Alex lately, but he is a long-term "prayer project" due to the nature of his hip condition. We just need to continue to pray that his recovery continues on track.

Today's class member prayer:

Monica Harbarger

Have a great day.