A Voice From Above

Before he became a truck driver, my dad flew a spray plane.  Most people called him a “crop duster,” but he preferred “aerial applicator.”  

Back in those days before GPS, someone would have to drive to the field where the job was to be done to assist him in lining up correctly for each pass through the field.  

If the terrain was flat enough, as most of it was, each swath was measured by counting off the correct number of “dings” in the special hubcap he had fitted on the pickup.  A large day-glo orange flag was mounted behind the cab. Occasionally, a hilly field would require a flagger at both ends; one of us (me) on foot, stepping off each swath as he flew overhead.

The girl he’d hired to drive the truck was a few years older.  I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so it was my job to help her navigate to the fields using the plat books we carried with us as well as to be the on-foot flagger when necessary. 

We were both pretty good at reading maps, but once in a while we would get lost on our way to the field.  That is when Dad would come on over the CB radio and yell at us to get our asses over to the right place.  Spray planes use a lot of fuel when they’re fully loaded, so it made him mad to waste it flying around while we drove around the wrong section like a couple of idiots.  He got paid so much per acre, so that fuel cost came out of his pocket, not the farmer’s.

You might think we would be glad to get directions from Dad; after all, he had the best view from the air.  I can tell you that this was definitely not the case, though, because we had so much trouble understanding him.  The noise from the airplane combined with the static of those radios made it nearly impossible to figure out what he was saying.  If we asked him to repeat too many times, he would yell at us to “listen the first time, dammit!”  If we took a guess and then drove in the wrong direction, he would yell at us to “pay attention!”  So, you can see why we girls would argue with one another over who had to answer the radio.  I usually lost that “because he’s your dad.”

Contrast that image with our reading from 1 Samuel 3 last week. The Lord is calling Samuel’s name.  It never occurs to Samuel that the Lord would be calling him. Since it’s his job to assist old Eli, who is sleeping nearby, Samuel makes a logical assumption that it’s Eli who is calling and responds accordingly.

Now, another thing that would raise my dad’s ire, besides wasting fuel, was being awakened from a nap.  Unless it was a windy day, he was flying by the time the sun was rising, so after-lunch naps were part of his daily routine.  And you did not want to be the one who had to wake him up if someone was there to see him or he had a phone call.  I avoided that like I did answering the radio.

So, I am especially impressed with Eli’s patience as Samuel wakes him up not once, but three times.  The first two times, Eli gently tells the boy to go back and lie down.  The third time this happens, it dawns on Eli that the voice Samuel is hearing must be the Lord’s. 

Notice it isn’t just Eli who is patient in this story, either.  There’s nothing to indicate that God is frustrated or angry with either of these guys.  God simply repeats, “Samuel, Samuel.”  This is another good place to play that little game I like to call, ‘Things God Does Not Say.’  God doesn’t say, “Whatsa matter, you got somethin in yer ears?”  God doesn’t say, “Well, if you had just listened to me the first time…”  God doesn’t say, “Read my lips…” God doesn't say "I'm not going to tell you again..."

With gentle, patient persistence, God eventually gets the message across.  Even today, through all the noise and static of our lives God still speaks.  Sometimes, like Samuel, we just don’t recognize the voice and we need someone else, like Eli, to help us to hear.  That’s one of the reasons we need to be in community with other Christians, so that we aren’t misled by what we think we hear on our own. 

Selective hearing is another story.  We all know how people will tune out what they don’t want to hear.  Spouses accuse one another of it all the time and parents of teenagers are well-acquainted with it.  Caller ID is a form of that.  I like it because it allows me to refuse to answer a call if I don’t recognize the number displayed…or if it’s someone I simply don’t want to talk to.

God’s way of dealing with people who hear but refuse to listen is different.  One case involves a really big fish, but I'll save that one for another day.