Speak, for Your Servant Is Listening

1 Samuel 3:10. The Lord came and stood there and called as before, Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, speak, for your servant is listening.

It took four calls. Three times the boy ran to Eli, sure the old priest had summoned him. Three times Eli sent him back to bed, until finally it dawned on Eli what was happening, and he told Samuel what to say. The words are simple, and they carry a whole theology of prayer inside them. Speak. That is a request that God would take the initiative. Your servant. That is a confession of who is in charge. Is listening. That is a promise to receive whatever comes, which in Samuel's case was a hard message about the man who had just taught him the sentence.

Much of our prayer is us speaking and God, we assume, listening. Samuel reverses it. On this Thursday, try opening your Bible with his sentence and nothing else. Speak, Lord. Then read, slowly, as someone prepared to be told something.