“Sh’mu’el lay there until morning;
then he opened the doors of the house of Adonai.
But Sh’mu’el was afraid to tell ‘Eli the vision.”
-1 Samuel 3:15
After his encounter with the Lord…
Samuel was lying on his bed as if he’d been knocked out.
And who wouldn’t be after experiencing what Samuel went through?
Samuel had just received a bonafide vision from the Creator of the universe.
The word for vision in Hebrew here is MARAH.
We see this word first appear in the book of Genesis.
“And God spoke unto Israel
in the visions of the night,
and said, Jacob, Jacob.”
-Genesis 46:2
And then later on in the book of Numbers:
“among you, I the LORD will make
myself known unto him in a vision,
and will speak unto him in a dream.”
-Numbers 12:6
However, the intent here is to actually connect Samuel’s vision to verse 1 of this chapter where it says…
“Now, in those days
Adonai rarely spoke,
and visions were few“.
-1 Samuel 3:1
But now with God appearing before Samuel, things were about to change.
A new era in Israel’s history was dawning.
And Samuel was about to kick things off by executing his first mission as a prophet of God.
He had to report to Eli everything the Lord had told him.
And do it without hesitation.
So Samuel got up and opened the door to the sanctuary.
This was the door to Holy Place where the priests would enter into to perform their duties.
There must’ve been a million thoughts racing through Eli’s head.
He had dreadful news to disclose.
But would he be able to do it?
Samuel was terrified as he entered the sanctuary chambers to meet Eli.
I’m gonna close here but the takeaway for today is this:
There will be times in your life when you’ll have to communicate difficult news to someone without watering anything down.
And you’ll be scared because confrontation can be understandably difficult…
Whether it’s a wife confronting an adulterous husband about his behavior outside the office.
Or a person confronting a friend about a drug addiction he refuses to face.
Whatever it may be, getting someone to face the truth of God and His Word can be one of the biggest challenges a believer will ever face in his or her lifetime.
I mean look at what happened to the prophets who preached God’s Word.
They were reviled by the common people.
Nevertheless, the Lord has called us to be a light for Him…
And to speak His truth unvarnished and uncensored.
The question is…
Will YOU have the guts to do it without mincing your words?
We’ll continue on with this the next we meet.
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