Who can you trust?  Years ago, it was no one over the age of thirty.  Now, it’s no one!  Politicians, judges, teachers, police… and devotional writers!  As a youngster, I don’t remember it being that way.  Do you?  All my teachers were respected.  Pastors?  In a league all their own.  Police?  We called them police officers, not cops or worse.  I got all excited when my father got the autograph of the vice-president.  Okay, not of the USA, but the New Jersey chapter of the Kiwanis Clubs.  So, I was desperate!  Have pity, already!

Today, suspicions run deep for all of the above.  Trust, a rare commodity in our day and age.  We’ve lost so much…decency, the Bible as moral compass, tolerance(only if you agree with me, which is no tolerance at all).

1 Samuel 3 exists in a period where everyone does whatever they want.  No restraints.  Feels right, do it.  Doesn’t feel right, do it anyway.  That’s where the book of Judges ends and 1 Samuel begins.  Starting with the story of Eli, a godly man.  A judge in Israel.  He has two sons, both out-of-control–with their father and with God.  They could care less.  Eli kept his mouth shut.

Big problems lurk in the shadows.  Mainly this–‘In those days the word of the Lord was rare…’  Nobody was listening to the Lord and He Himself complied by being quiet.  Self moved to the head-of-the-class while God’s Word was relegated to a darkened corner wearing a dunce cap.  The moral barometer, broken.  The compass, ignored.  All hell had broken loose.

But there’s hope!  Along comes a young boy named Samuel, of godly parents.  Samuel serves alongside Eli in the Temple.  Verse 7 says that ‘…Samuel did not yet know the Lord.  The Word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.’  Samuel didn’t know the Lord or His Word.  He had an excuse.  We don’t.

The Bible, for most, is readily available.  Can buy one for a dollar.  Look carefully in the parking lot of the mall and you’ll find enough change on the ground to replenish that dollar spent!  Open your Bible, dive right in.  The water’s fine!  Don’t allow the Bible to be ‘rare’ in your life.  Hear from the Lord.  You’ll discover your trust-thermometer beginning to rise.  Trusting the One who will never let us down, never lie to us, who keeps His every promise.  As the Bible says…

Verse 19–‘The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he(Samuel) let none of His Words fall to the ground’.  He held on to each one.  When you need it most, how handy to have your Bible close at hand, in your heart and mind.  Rare…no more!  Well done!

Prayer:  Lord, thank you for the Bible.  We cherish it as your Word to us.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.