How God Gets Our Attention

December 10, 2006
How God Gets Our Attention
1 Samuel 3:1-10

God uses a variety of methods to get our attention. Sometimes He’ll give us a restless spirit. At other times He can get our attention through a word from a fellow believer, through tragedy, through unanswered prayer, through disappointment, and through financial difficulty, among other ways.

Whatever method God chooses to bring you within His will is perfect and is born of His love. He can see not only your present but also your future. He has plans for you and will keep you in precise accordance with those plans if you obey Him.

It is when we cease traveling on the path He has chosen for us that God has to get our attention. He may use one method today, another next week, another next year. Yet He always acts out of love and never out of whim, anger, or vindication.

Our response, then, should be to examine every single area and circumstance of our lives and ask the Lord to clarify what He is trying to show us and how He wants us to proceed.

God got Samuel’s attention through someone else, his mentor Eli. When finally Samuel understood who was calling him, he told God that he was “listening.” This particular Hebrew word means “to hear with a view to obeying.” Samuel answered with clear intentions to obey though he had no idea what God would say next. May his response be our model.

Romans 1:16
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of GOD unto salvation for all who will believe........"