1 Samuel 3:1-10

Some people say that they are waiting to hear from God. Listening for the voice to tell them what they must do
I want you just for a moment to enter this scene with me for a few moments.
Who was with Samuel? An Old Man
Why was Samuel there? His mother dedicated him to the Lord.
How old was Samuel? 12 years at best.
Where was he? In a church by himself. Have you ever been in a church by yourself at night? It can kind of freak you out.
There were no other 12-year-olds in the temple at this time. He had no one to play with.
There was no radio playing, no television to watch, he didn’t have any comic books to read.There was literally nothing to take his mind off of the deafening silence of his lonely circumstances. He was alone in a quiet church with just his thoughts.

Solitude is one of the necessary but also most difficult disciplines. It means time with God in the absence of books, newspapers, magazines, television, facebook or phone calls. Solitude begins with a time and a place for God, and him alone. If we don¡¦t push back the things that crowd our schedule then we are effectively shutting out the word of God from our lives. There are competing distractions from the outside. But we also have to recognize that there are competing distractions from the inside.

Solitude doesn¡¦t mean that we shut out all of our inner doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings, and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distractions, as Henri Nouwen reminds us, we will find that our inner distractions manifest themselves in full force. And if we are honest we will admit that this is really the reason that we fail to sit down in solitude because we don¡¦t have the heart or the desire to confront these challenges.
But it is only in solitude that we can really deal with these challenges. It is here that we bring up the skeletons in our closet for spring-cleaning. It is here that God will speak healing, encouragement, or direction in our lives. If we want to hear from God, we have got to have the courage to practice the discipline of solitude.