Lectio Divina from the Jesse Tree
LITTLE BOYS – Day 13 👦& 14 🎋
1 Samuel 3:1-21; 16:1-13
“Not yet.”
How often I have heard it spoken of the youth, “You’re not ready. You’re too young.” And yet, here is little Samuel, in the care of the elder Eli, sleeping in the same room with God “when the lamp of God was not yet extinguished.” And God calls out to the young boy who does “not yet recognize the Lord, since the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” And he tells him secrets not even the elder knows!
“What did he say to you! Hide nothing from me.”
Perhaps it’s the innocence of children that makes them so appealing to the Lord. Even though the vision revealed to the young Samuel was not good for his elder teacher, he holds nothing back. Without motive or conceit, the boy simply tells what he has seen. Like the young David he would anoint many years later when he would be the elder, Samuel’s youth was actually what made him more than qualified for the job because he could tell the truth without manipulation.
“Samuel was a trustworthy prophet… and the Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to go unfulfilled.”
How many prophets do you know today who can boast the same?
“He was ruddy, a youth with beautiful eyes, and good looking.”
Like Samuel, David too was called by the Lord in his youth. The youngest of seven sons, still tending the sheep. He was unscarred by the harshness of life, still optimistic and full of hope. Still filled with vigour and every opportunity that awaits the youth but long passes the old.
“The Lord sees the heart.”
May your heart be like a child.
“And from that day on, the spirit of the Lord rushed upon him.”
