This breaking in of the sun on Anne and my walk along Eastbourne promenade was a surprise last week. It came back to me reflecting on today’s reading about the call of Samuel. Tell God your plans and you're in for a surprise! Again and again in my life I work, as the conscientious guy I try to be, to set up the best future for myself and my family - but we have a God of surprises! We have a God who as Paul teaches in Romans 8 works all things for good for those who love him through both our planning and through the surprises he gives us. Sometimes these surprises, like challenging illness in the family, are initially unwelcome though they work for good when accepted in faith. There are no circumstances of which God is not Master.
The call of Samuel in our first reading was a surprise to him. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. We're told. Yet At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and he said, ‘Here I am!’ and ran to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’
After two rebuttals we hear how Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Samuel and Eli have a surprise of the Spirit they need to come to terms with. In consequence of God’s call to Samuel Israel gets a new start that leads through Samuel to Saul, David and the Kings.
As we move through the first month of a new year many of us are looking for one sort of fresh start or other. Could we do better than look again at our circumstances to discern God’s hand at work? Seek a refreshing of our relationship with God by taking extra time to wait upon him in prayer on our own? To seek the newness imparted to us again and again from the permanent newness of Jesus who's the same yesterday, today and forever?
God in Christ is a living and therefore surprising God. We can’t tie him down in human categories since we are not in his league. We are to him as dust to the heavens above. In God’s house whether you’re the greatest saint or worst sinner puts you either top or bottom of the carpet. In that respect what’s most surprising is God’s actual interest in us humans in the first place. How he takes trouble to call Samuel, the apostles in the Gospel, Simon Peter’s mother-in-law - and, yes, you and I - for we are each one of us here loved and called to be equipped for his purposes?
C.S.Lewis wrote a book ‘Surprised by Joy’ to describe the confounding of his dismal atheism by a surprising encounter with the living God. Sometimes it can be the same for us. We go through phases of practical atheism when God doesn’t seem to count much in our lives only to be woken up like Samuel by a voice from above spoken through and into our circumstances.
Here I am, for you called me, we find ourselves saying in obedience to God’s surprising or disconcerting interventions. If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans. At the end of the day we’re not ultimately in control of our lives - God is. There are no circumstances of which he is not the Master. Plan we must, as this New Year gets underway, but let our plans leave space and openness to welcome the surprises of the Holy Spirit in our circumstances.
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