Trust seems to be a rare commodity in our day and age.  Who can you trust?  When I was a college student, it was no one over the age of 30.  Now, it’s just plain old no one.  Presidents, Congress, judges, school teachers, pastors…all lower than low  on the trust-scale.  Maybe I’m just getting older ( who said ‘no maybe about it’?!), but didn’t used to be that way, not at all.  I remember getting all excited about an autograph from the vice-president–no, not of the United States but of the New Jersey chapter of the Kiwanis Clubs!  Ok, I was desperate!  Have pity on me, already! I’m from New Jersey.  But I thought he must be a special guy.  My teachers, all of them, were worth respecting, they worked hard, taught well  and I did not want any bad reports to come back to my parents from any of them. No way, Jose (I took Spanish too!)  My pastors…in a league all their own in my estimation. Giants of the faith.  The police?  We didn’t call them ‘cops’ or worse, they were police officers, they were doing what was right for all of us.  Judges were next to God in their way of dispensing justice in a fair and even-handed way looking to the Constitution for the common good.But  today? We’re suspicious of all of them.   Is my age catching up with me?  Who said it IS my age and that I can’t even catch up with that!  But all kidding aside, trust seems to be  very rare commodity in our day and age.  We’ve lost so much…decency, moral compass, kindness, focus on others, tolerance, (everyone is so offended by everything they don’t like),  defending someone’s else’s right to disagree with me.  Good old freedom of speech. Are you with me?  I heard an ‘amen’!   Here’s the place to read 1 Samuel chapter 3 in your Old Testament of the Bible.  We’re in the period where everyone is doing exactly whatever they want or feel like doing.  No restraints…feels right, do it.  That’s where the Book of Judges ends.  Now 1 Samuel begins with the story of another leader of the nation Israel, a judge and priest, and his name is Eli.  Eli’s a godly  man, a priest and judge for God’s people, who let his 2 sons,also priests, just run wild and crazy,totally out-of-control and completely out-of-sync with God and what matters to the Lord.  They could care less, and Eli just kept his mouth shut.  For there was a bigger problem lurking in the shadows…’in those days the word of the Lord was rare…’ (verse 1).  Nobody was listening to God’s Word. It was rarer than penny candy today.   Self moved to the head of the class while the Bible was sitting in a darkened corner wearing a dunce cap.  When that happens, trust flies out the window.  The moral barometer  broken, the compass smashed;  and all hell breaks loose in our lives,  our families, our churches, countries, even the world. But there’s hope.  Along comes a young boy named Samuel, of godly parents.  Samuel serves alongside old Eli… and hears from the Lord.  Verse 7 says that ‘…Samuel did not yet know the Lord.  The Word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.’  I guess, in a sense, Samuel had an excuse.  Nothing had been revealed yet from the Lord. Maybe he had an excuse.   But we don’t. I don’t.  The Word of the Lord couldn’t be easier for us to find, discover and hear.  Just pick up that Bible of yours,you can buy one for a dollar and find enough loose change out on the parking lot to repay yourself if needed; open it up, dive in  and hear the Word of the Lord.  Support mission groups that translate the Bible and get the Bible out to people that have never had one.  Give money to evangelical, Christian groups sharing God’s Word with people in need of salvation and the truth of God.  Pray for our leaders, people in authority that they too will hear and heed the Word of God.  Trust won’t be far behind, then.    The trust- temperature will be rising, certainly in the One who will never let us down, who will never lie to us, who keeps each and every one of His promises…just as His Bible says.  And Samuel?  Read verses 19-21.  Especially verse 19: ‘The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he (Samuel) let none of His (God’s) words fall to the ground’.  Not one of God’s Words did Samuel just drop to the dirt and sand.  Each one he held onto, each one he palmed close to his heart with arms crossed over his chest.  When you need it most, how handy to have your Bible close at hand and in your mind and heart, beating fresh life of trust in the Lord no matter what!  Rare no more, not with us…but roaring with trust and hope and confidence in Jesus, the Lion of Judah!