“And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.” (1Sa 3:19 AV)
“Fall to the ground” means to be cast aside and wasted. It means to regard something so insignificant that if it were lost, it would never be missed. Samuel was new to the things of the LORD. When the LORD spoke to him, he thought He was Eli. It took three times before Eli could discern that the LORD’s voice was speaking to Samuel. Samuel was young and tender-hearted. Everything he heard from the LORD was remembered, learned, and studied. Every detail was important. Every truth was held as invaluable. Every alliteration, historical fact, or prophetical statement was important to him. Samuel was like a new convert who soaked everything up. Maybe he was like many of us and made something more than it seemed simply because it was new. Regardless, this man of God knew the value of God’s word and treated it as such.
I enjoy watching a BBC program called The Repair Shop. Craftsmen from all sorts of fields work to restore family heirlooms. They are as expensive as a 17th century original painting of a king to something as simple as a pair of ballet slippers. There are all sorts of items that come through the shop. Most have more of a history and sentimental value than a monetary one. About twenty-five percent of the items have a military history. Mostly from WWI and WWII. There are regular cast members. There is a furniture restorer, a clock-maker, a leatherworker, and a porcelain worker. There are two ladies who work on stuffed animals, there is a metal worker who repairs industrial or larger items, and an art conservator. Then the show invites other tradesmen to guest appear. There is a luthier, and cobbler, a blacksmith, and a goldsmith who repairs jewelry. Each has their own special workspace with tools unique to their skill. The jeweler has a special workbench. The host of the show made a big deal over it. He couldn’t understand why he needed this particular bench. It had a unique shape. The bench was rectangular, but it had a large semicircle cut from it on one side. Underneath the cutout hung a thick-gauge rubber mat. The mat had slack in it, so it could droop. The tradesman remarked that as he worked on precious metals, the dust would fall to the mat. He could then collect it, melt it, and reuse it. Not one speck of dust would fall to the ground. It would all be collected, fused together under extreme heat, and reused for one more repair.
The older we get and the more familiar we become with the word of God, the more apt we are to let some of it fall to the ground. Samuel was no exception. He had firsthand experience with the poor parenting skills of Eli. Eli’s sons were immoral and greedy. The condition of his sons is what led the LORD to anoint Samuel. Yet what happened with Samuel’s sons? History repeated itself. Samuel’s sons turned out the way Eli’s sons turned out. Samuel started out well. He let none of God’s word fall to the ground. He soaked it all up. Yet, as he aged, more and more of the truth of the word of God went unheeded. The same could be true for many of us. We start out well. We receive Christ and are enraptured with the truth of God’s word. We cannot get enough. We read everything. We study every detail. Then life happens. Soon, the word of God has lost its preeminent place in our minds and hearts. We go to church and are mentally checked in for a brief amount of time. Most of what the preacher says goes in one ear and out the other. When we sit down and read our devotions, too many other things occupy our thoughts, so when we are done, there is little we take away from it. It is time to have the eyes of a newbie! It is time for us to once again value every single word of the Bible. It is time to make the Bible our greatest priority, and prayer follows closely.