Speak, Lord, For Your
Servant Is Listening!
I have an album from the group, Liberated Wailing Wall, a musical outreach of Jews for Jesus, which contains a
song titled “Hineni!” I love to listen to and sing the song. It always puts me in the correct perspective
in my walk with the Lord. “Hineni” is a
Hebrew word and the literal translation is
“Here am I”. Yet, like most Hebrew
words it has a fuller meaning: The word
'Hineni' means 'Here I am' in a spiritual sense, which is what Abraham
says and means to God to indicate his readiness when he is called
on in Genesis 22:1.
“After these events, God tested and proved Abraham and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Here I am. [God] said, Take now your son, your only son
Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah; and offer him there as a
burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I will tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled
his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac; and he
split the wood for the burnt offering, and then began the trip to the place of
which God had told him.” (Genesis
22:1-3 AMP)
God
called and in essence Abraham answered, “Here I am, Lord, ready to do whatever
you ask of me.” Abraham answered, “Hineni!”
Of
course, we all know the story of Moses and the burning bush. Did you know that Moses also answered, “Hineni”?
And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight,
why the bush is not burned. And when the
Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the
bush and said, Moses, Moses! And he said,
Here am I. God said, Do not come
near; put your shoes off your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy
ground. (Exodus
3:3-5 AMP) In this scripture we also
find the Hebrew word “Hineni”. Moses was willing and ready to listen to God
when he saw a bush burning but not being consumed in the wilderness, so his
“Hineni” was genuine. It was not until
God told Moses what He wanted him to do that Moses started having doubts, but
we know that the story does not end there.
We know Moses was obedient to what God called him to do and the result
was hundreds of thousands of people freed from slavery and taken back to the
land promised their forefathers. Moses
answered, “Hineni!”
Probably
the most familiar story we learned in Sunday School is the story about
Samuel. As a boy, serving the High
Priest Eli in the temple, Samuel heard God call him. How did he answer God?
“The lamp of God had not yet gone out in the temple of the Lord,
where the ark of God was, and Samuel was lying down. When the Lord called, Samuel! And he
answered, Here I am. He ran to Eli and
said, Here I am, for you called me.
Eli said, I did not call you; lie down again. So he went and lay down. And the Lord called again, Samuel! And Samuel
arose and went to Eli and said, Here am
I; you did call me. Eli answered, I did not call, my son; lie down
again. Now Samuel did not yet know the
Lord, and the word of the Lord was not yet revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel the third time.
And he went to Eli and said, Here I am,
for you did call me. Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli said to Samuel, Go, lie down. And if
He calls you, you shall say, Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening. So
Samuel went and lay down in his place.
And the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, Samuel!
Samuel! Then Samuel answered, Speak,
Lord, for Your servant is listening.”
(1 Samuel 3:3-10)
When my sister calls me on the telephone all she has to do is
say, “Hi”, and I know right away who it is.
I recognize her voice. I have
heard it often enough to recognize it.
Samuel had never heard the voice of God (1 Samuel 3:7) so he thought it
was Eli. Yet, he had the right attitude
when he answered “Hineni” and went to Eli.
After a couple times of this happening Eli perceived that God was
calling Samuel and told Samuel what to do.
Samuel was obedient. Samuel
answered, “Hineni!”
God is calling you today.
You have been sanctified (set aside from the world) by God and are given
tasks which will fit together with other believers to build His Kingdom. Will you answer be “Hineni?” Will you answer
be, “Here I am?” Will your answer be, “Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening?”
