A Samuel Generation | Letters to a Samuel Generation

by Rachel Starr Thomson
written June 2005

He was born as an answer to his mother's prayer; dedicated to God before he could walk. He was raised by the High Priest of Israel and grew to be a man of God, of whom it was said that God “let none of his words fall to the ground.” He was a prophet and the last judge of Israel: the one who made way for the king, who anointed David to sit on the throne of Jerusalem.

His name was Samuel. Sometimes I think he and I have a lot in common.

You, too. Do you doubt it? You were born again in answer to someone's prayer. God chose you for Himself before you could walk. Chances are you've spent a lot of time in the Temple—in church culture, singing in the choir, memorizing your verses; listening to the sermon, maybe even preaching it. Your service has been sincere and real and God has accepted it. As to Samuel's unique place in history, as the man who stood in the gap between two eras... well, who can say what will come after us? We may be in the last days. We too prepare the way for our King.

But there's something in Samuel's story I'd like to point out: when God called him, in I Samuel 3:4, the boy who had served the LORD all his life did not recognize His voice. Does this mean that all of Samuel's years of service prior to this had been a sham, a series of empty, wasted years? No. He spent those years serving God, and God spent them preparing him to enter a whole new era in his spiritual life.

All the Sunday school lessons, principles, “right-thinking,” good practices, Bible study, and seminary lessons in the world can never measure up to a single encounter with the living God. The one who sees God is forever changed.

Samuel's call was not the end of his walk in the supernatural. I Samuel 3:21 records that “the LORD appeared again in Shiloh: for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel by the word of the LORD.”

When I was fourteen, I had an experience similar to Samuel's. I was born into a Christian family with generations of believers on both sides. I grew up in church. Moreover, I was always inclined to take spiritual things seriously. As a nine-year-old I did my best to evangelize the neighbours. I tried to make myself cry over the crucifixion. I rededicated my life umpteen times throughout my childhood and early teens. I ruled in Bible trivia.

My family moved out to California and I found myself looked up to in youth group because I was so spiritual. I knew all the right answers; I tried to be obedient and live a godly life. But inside I was starving. Call me a melodramatic teenager (and I probably was), but I remember going to God in desperation one day and telling Him that if this was all there was, I was through. It was time to go my own way. As far as I could see, I had reached the limits of what Christianity had to offer—and it wasn't enough.

That same week I huddled in a dark room and listened to party-goers celebrating the New Year outside my window. I felt desperately alone. I thought I could understand why some people consider suicide—it hurt so much to live. Two words passed through my mind, frozen in empty significance: “You're alone.”

And on the heels of that thought the Hound of Heaven came howling in. “You're not,” said a new voice. “The Holy Spirit is here.”

I can't explain what happened in that room in that moment. Amy Carmichael once described a similar experience by saying that “the darkness became light around me.” I knew God was there. I could almost touch Him. The air that I breathed was joy and peace. I fell asleep in absolute peace, knowing with all my heart that He loved me and was with me.

Did that “spiritual high” last? Of course not. But I had been changed. In the next year, God began to open the floodgates and show me who He was. Scripture blazed to life. Praise songs burst into glory. Even the dust beneath my feet caused me to rejoice, because He had once walked on dust just like it! Today, the echoes of that time still shape my life. I cannot always feel God. Sometimes I doubt His word. But I know that I know that I know He is real—and I know that He is love. I know. I've been with Him.

Before Samuel was called, God told the High Priest Eli that “I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind” (I Sam.2:35). This is what I believe God wants to do in our lives. He is not looking for a group of people to keep a list of rules or agree with a set of propositions. He is looking for a people who will seek Him, who will love Him, who will know Him so well that they can do according to all that is in God's heart and in His mind! It is true, we can never achieve this on our own. No amount of prayer, praise, or service will reveal God to us. He can only reveal Himself. But I believe that He wants to do so—and that He will.

God is not interested in setting us on spiritual mountaintops for all time. He wants us to know the depths of who He is, and so we must go through deep places in our lives. Suffering and abundance, sorrow and joy, heartache and a cup that runneth over—all serve to reveal Him. We must open our eyes; we must look for Him, because He is looking for us. His first purpose is not to make us happy. His first purpose is to reveal Himself to us, and in so doing, to make us like Him.

The New Testament resounds with this great anthem. Jesus came to reveal the Father. The Holy Spirit comes to reveal Jesus. Paul's letters sing with the joy of one to whom the Lord had appeared. The writer of Hebrews urges us to “leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ and go on unto perfection,” to follow Jesus beyond the veil into the Holy of Holies, into the very presence of the Living God (Heb. 6:1, 19-20).

vThousands of years ago David, the psalmist and king, cried out to God to come and fulfill all of his deepest longings. “O God, thou art my God;” he said, “early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary” (Psalm 63:1-2).

My friends, my family, know that God has called you to this. “This is life eternal,” Jesus said in John 17:3, “that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”