Eli said…..“It is the Lord. Let Him do what seems good to Him”
This past two weeks, I have been exploring the book of Samuel, and it has been a favorite of mine since my teenage years. The Lord allowed me to see something new. The story of Eli is the story of many people whom God calls to serve Him. While he excelled in his priesthood, he failed as a parent.
1 Samuel 2:29 (NKJV)
“Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?”
Eli’s sons had been going astray for a while when the Lord sent a man of God to tell him that He was not happy with how Phinehas and Hophni were behaving in their service to the Lord as priests. God was gracious enough to send this man of God to forewarn Eli and give him a chance to correct his sons and bring them back to the ways of the Lord. But Eli let them be, and they continued to sin against the Lord. The ignorance of this first warning may have caused the Lord to bring judgment to the house of Eli through his apprentice, the prophet Samuel.
1 Samuel 3:12–14 (NKJV)
“In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them. And therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”
As Christians, we are called to a life of surrender to God’s will. The reason I shared Eli’s story is that we assume we are not likely to go through trials and tribulations. But as I read 1 Samuel 3, the Lord reminded me that sometimes the trials and tribulations we go through in our lives are meant for His glory. Samuel may have been afraid to share what God had revealed to him about the house of Eli because it was a word that spelled doom for the house of Eli. But Eli had a different posture. After hearing the prophecy and knowing the Lord had spoken, he accepted it and resigned himself to what God was doing.
Now that we are living in the new covenant of Christ Jesus as the lamb who has been slaughtered for our sins, and in a time when the Lord recognizes us as individual priests in His kingdom, how then can we ensure that we are aware of what God is doing in each season of our lives and ensure that we do not call circumstances we see as thorns in our lives the works of the enemy, while it is the Lord’s will or His way of grooming us into becoming vessels that He can use in His kingdom? If you are surrendered to Christ and living for Him, everything works out for your good even when things appear to be negative. It is therefore our duty to look up to the Lord and know what His will for our life is in every situation and align ourselves with what He is doing in that season of our lives.
1 Samuel 3:18
“Then Samuel told him everything, and hid nothing from him. And he said, ‘It is the LORD. Let Him do what seems good to Him.’”
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Thank you for reading. This piece was first published here
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Please feel free to leave a comment or send an email to share with me the areas in which you you have had to put aside your human desires and accept God’s will.
