I sit down in the only big chair in the circle. Guitar in hand and songs ready. This is one of the few remaining places I get to teach. It didn't used to be this way. When it began I taught everything...Sunday school, youth, Wednesday afternoon bible. It was just me and a handful of volunteers. Now we have grown and it takes so many. Young mothers to grandfathers all sharing the Good News in some way. Chapel time at the preschool, it is special. A time to remind me of where it began...just me teaching and a few dozen little faces.
We always begin with songs. Children singing praises to God. We retell the stories of sneaky snakes, and the one rule broken. We share over and over about a father of many, a brother in the pit, and a flooded world with a floating ark. I tell them about the Red Sea parting and queens who are born "for such a time as this". I start and they fill in the blanks because I want them to remember long after they go to "big school".
This day our story is about Samuel. The one born to a begging mother. A boy left to be raised in the temple with Eli because that is what she promised. She left him there when he was about the age of the ones I teach. It must have torn her heart out. It would have mine. The story is completed with God giving Samuel a message. Two times he hears a voice in the dark night and thinks it is Eli. The third he answers under Eli's instruction and God gives a message.
I begin to ask the questions. Things like why was Samuel's mom sad at first? What did God do for her? The questions go on and the little answers get shouted out. For some reason no matter what question I ask on any given day someone shouts out...GOD! I laugh and say God is not the exact answer to all my questions, but really he is.
Then I ask, "Who was the one calling Samuel's name in the dark night?"
Dead silence. It must be the one question that I have asked that not one answers comes forth. They look at each other...I wait. They look at me...I ask the question again. And still no one answers. Why is it that this question has stilled the tongue. No little voice shouting....GOD!
Driving home I wonder...is it so outrageous that God actually speaks to us that even four year olds find it hard to believe. To the world we live in it is. Still God is the same yesterday, today, forever. He spoke then...he speaks now.
For some it is an uncomfortable subject. Saying God led us, spoke through his word, or another...well, that just feels weird. What will others think?
We sit down to supper and I look at the three God has blessed me with. Do they know that God speaks? Would they be able to tell me how to hear him...what he sounds like? Have I forgotten to show them...taken for granted that they will figure it out on their own? This momma is not going to leave it up to chance. The one question I will be asking at dinner for the next few weeks..."When and where did you hear God speak today."
