Speak, Lord (1 Samuel 3)

The story of your life can be told with a few words. Your story is really about who you are, where you've come from, what you're overcoming, and where it's all headed. We get the story of Samuel's life in summary form in 1 Samuel 3 as he first hears the word of the Lord and has to decide how to respond to it.

In season five we're learning to pray the most common type of scripture: narrative or stories. They make up almost half of the Bible so it's important we learn how to read and pray this very common type of Scripture. We also need to grasp the overall storyline of the entire Bible.

If you are getting started in a relationship with God, trying to have a quiet time or seeking guidance at this point in your life, you're in the right place.

Spend your first minutes of the day listening to God and responding in a personal way. This podcast will show you how and teach you in an easy to follow process.

We will listen to God's word, reflect on it and learn to pray to God as well as carry that word with through the rest of the day. It's the perfect way to get started in each day's journey of faith!

1 Samuel 1-2 sets us up to understand Samuel's background and the important background of Eli and his sons. By looking at the first three chapters of Samuel, we learn a few key things about stories in general as well as how stories in the Bible are a little different.

We mentioned before the three key parts of any story are the plot, setting and characters. Plot is the basic action sequence, and two additional parts of it are conflict and resolution. You really don't have a story without some kind of conflict. If we didn't have the all-important information from v. 1, we wouldn't really have a conflict in this story.

1 Samuel 3 starts and ends with an emphasis on the word of Yahweh, and Samuel's story is distinctive because he listens to God and fearlessly speaks it to others regardless of their position. That's what makes him a prophet. Even with the lack of many details, description or even a moral judgment on the actions of the characters, the Bible creates a big impact with a very few words.

Go ahead and get started listening and follow or subscribe to this podcast to hear more from God's word.

We have a Youtube video based on this scripture that you can watch here.

The four step process demonstrated in this episode is available here.

Angela Oltmanns has written a series of family devotions based on 1 Samuel. Get a copy of the book 1 Samuel: How to Be a Child After God's Heart on Amazon (or the ebook).

Additional resources at https://word-of-prayer.com