A big question for those of us who believe in God is how to know what his will is for my life or in a particular situation.  And the related question, “How do I know if I’m actually hearing God or if it’s just my own voice in my head?” Or even simpler than that, “How do I pray?  How do I have a real conversation with God that’s not just me babbling in my own little echo chamber.”  The First Reading, the famous story of Samuel hearing the voice of the Lord, is a textbook about the way God interacts with us.  It’s a simple story, but it’s profound.  Over and over, God calls to Samuel.  But he’s not paying attention to the possibility that it might be God’s voice, so he assumes it’s his father bugging him about something.  He gets woken up three times before his father Eli helps him understand what’s going on, and how to respond to what is truly indeed God’s voice.  In other words, Eli helps Samuel to pray. 

Notice, this wasn’t a lack of desire.  Samuel wanted to pray.  He wanted to listen to God and respond appropriately.  After all, he was sleeping in the temple of God, where the ark was.  The ark represented the presence of God and Samuel was there.  It’s like being in church.  Imagine if you stayed after Mass, and I lock up and turn off the lights, but you stay because you want to keep praying, and it gets to be late at night and you’re so dedicated to hearing the voice of God that you don’t leave and go home and you actually just fall asleep in the pew.  Samuel was doing that; he was really trying.   But he still wasn’t actually tuned in.  He was in the temple after-hours, so he was obviously very dedicated to having some kind of contact with God.  But the problem was, he wanted that contact to take place on some kind of pre-established terms of his own that he had worked out in his mind.  He had his own expectations of how God would speak to him.  And that was the obstacle for him.  It’s been said that “expectation is premeditated resentment.”  In other words, if you go into a situation, in particular any kind of personal encounter, with a whole series of expectations and desires and anticipations, you might wind up disappointed because people just don’t usually fit into our personal narratives that neatly.  At first, Samuel had expectations.  So he was annoyed and irritated by the voice of God.  We’re told that he hadn’t really ever had an experience of prayer or God’s presence before, and he was obviously expecting something else.  He had expectations.  What he needed, was openness.  And this was Eli’s lesson to him.  Eli realizes what’s going on and his wise advice for Samuel was just to get up and say, “I’m here.  Speak, Lord.  I’m listening.”  That’s all he needed.  Openness.  And the result was a profound realization of the presence of God and a powerful and effective way of life moving forward.  

So for us, how do we apply the Wisdom of Eli for our own lives?  We certainly want to try to avoid strict expectations of how and when God will speak to us.  After all, prayer is not a magic trick; we’re not rubbing a lamp and expecting a genie to come out and give us our wishes on our own terms.  Prayer is our own free contact that we make with another being, God, who is himself free to respond when and how he sees fit.  Now, God’s not a monster: he is perfectly good and perfectly loving, so he always will respond in the way and at the time that is best for us.  But he is still free in how he chooses to do so, just as we are free to pray in the ways and with the frequency that we choose.  I think the most important thing for us is just to remember to listen.  We talk so much as modern people.  We have so much noise in our lives, constant input from various sources and directions.  We have to remember that you can’t listen if you never stop talking or never turn the tv off.  So my recommendation is this, for those of you who choose to want to pray, or to pray better.  And it is a choice.  I recommend that you make it, but as I said before, you are free.  So if you want to hear the voice of the Lord more profoundly and more effectively, here’s my suggestion: Take 15 minutes (that’s it), turn everything off, leave your phone in another room, and go to the most peaceful and quiet room of your house.  And just sit there.  Quietly.  Say nothing, except “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”  And then listen.  Just for 15 minutes.  Do nothing, say nothing, just sit quietly and listen.  The first few days it will be a little uncomfortable.  You may not hear much. After a week or so you’ll really be starting to listen and you’ll probably love those 15 tranquil minutes in your day.  After a month you’ll be aware of little things the Lord is saying to you all the time.  In a year, you’ll be a prayer professional.  At the end of your life, you’ll be a saint.  There’s no magic to it: Just say, “Speak Lord for your servant is listening.”  And then listen.  If you do that, every day, I bet God will transform your life.