Samuel’s family life: training in the train wreck
For awhile I taught a class of evangelists. These men followed a tendency that many people follow. It is a difficult habit to break.
We like to imagine that the people who are spoken of in the Bible are somehow better than we are. We like to think that they have some advantage that made them what they were. They become larger than life in our minds. We begin to think that we can never live up to the examples they set, because they were somehow special.
• They had special spiritual strength
• They had a special link to God
• They had more insight than others
We fall into the trap of thinking that we are inferior, or that God could never use us the way He used them.
The popular and very funny speaker, Ken Davis calls this "killing the Bible people." By assigning them super-human characteristics we suck the life out of them. We flatten them out and make them more a product of our imagination than the flesh and blood women and men that they were.
Samuel is one of those men. When we think of Samuel’s life we think of a few wonderful events:
• We think of his establishment of the kings of Israel
• We think of his confrontation with Saul
• We think of his Holy wisdom in bypassing David’s brothers when he was seeking a king
• We think of his anointing of David
• We may even think of his rebuke of Saul when Saul consulted a witch to speak with him after he was dead
Certainly, Samuel was a great man and was used in special ways by God. But that is not the whole story.
Samuel’s dysfunctional family
The story of Samuel’s early life is told in the Jewish Scriptures in 1 Samuel 1-8. The focus of the story is not on Samuel’s family. It is on the activities of Samuel as a judge and on the politics and moral condition of the Israelite nation. These were not good. It is no surprise then, that families also had trouble.
If we read carefully, we can get a picture of Samuel, raised in a very much less than perfect home. Let’s Look at the situation together. Hannah, Samuel’s mother was a second wife, not after a divorce, she was an additional wife. Her co-wife, I guess you would call it was named Penninah and she had children. She became Hannah’s rival wife. The Bible says:
And because the LORD had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her.
1 Samuel 1:6 (NIV)
Because Hannah, his mother had made a promise to God, she gave up her custody of Samuel at a young age:
After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh.
1 Samuel 1:24 (NIV)
She left him at the tabernacle to be raised by the priest, Eli. But Eli’s family had issues too.
Eli’s sons were wicked men; they had no regard for the LORD. 1 Samuel 2:12 (NIV)
They took for themselves parts of the sacrifice that were meant for God alone. If the people did not cooperate, they took what they wanted by force.
For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them. 1 Samuel 3:13 (NIV)
Eli told his boys to stop, but he took no steps to ensure that they obeyed. He was too easy going on his boys and the consequences were severe. They resulted not just in their own judgement, but in a curse on the whole family so that all the men died young. In fact a story follows Eli and the beginning of this curse:
He told Eli, “I have just come from the battle line; I fled from it this very day.”
Eli asked, “What happened, my son?”
The man who brought the news replied, “Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured.”
When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had led Israel forty years.
1 Samuel 4:16-18 (NIV)
In other words, Samuel’s whole foster family died in a single day. Let’s look at the list these problems create for Samuel:
• His father had two wives at the same time
• His step mother was mean spirited
• He was made into a foster child at about three years old
• Samuel’s foster brothers were selfish and corrupt
• His foster father Eli was lenient in the moral training of his two biological sons
• His whole foster family died in a single day
Besides this, Eli was hampered by a physical disability. He was becoming blind, so even if he wanted to make things better, it would have been difficult for him.
The impact of dysfunction on Samuel
Imagine the impact of these family situations on Samuel. Certainly his family situation was far from ideal. We are told nothing of his foster mother. His own biological mother only visited him on occasion. In our way of thinking, he did not see her nearly enough.
We are told by experts that dysfunction can form cycles. When a person grows up surrounded by dysfunction, it affects them and they form dysfunctional practices of their own, unless they become aware of them and take steps of healing.
This is true of Samuel’s family too. When Samuel had children, they became as corrupt as Samuel’s foster brothers had been. Samuel made his boys judges.
This was an inappropriate appointment. Samuel’s sons were clearly not suited to the jobs their father gave them. They became quite corrupt.
• They perverted justice
• They accepted bribes
• They made money in other immoral ways
This last item could have been many things. They may have become thieves. They may have lent money out at high interest. They may have seized the property of the poor. The law of Moses talks about many ways that people should not make money. These two men were powerful judges and could have found many ways to steal from the people.
It seems to me that Samuel made several mistakes in this:
• He pushed his sons into his own line of work instead of acknowledging that they may have been more suited for something outside his own dreams
• He blinded himself to their obvious lack of suitability for that work
• He did not make them accountable for their wrong actions, just as Eli did not hold his sons accountable
This illustrates a major Biblical truth:
What goes around comes around
Or, spoken directly from the words of Scripture, in the book of Job which had probably already been written by Samuel’s time:
As I have observed, those who plow evil
and those who sow trouble reap it. Job 4:8 (NIV)
This describes of Samuel and Eli as parents. Because they did not raise their children responsibly, they watched their own dysfunction destroy their children as they grew into adults.
Is there no hope?
The whole thing begins sounding like a pile up. In areas on the road of low visibility, in storms or fog, cars move too fast, have accidents, and then cars coming behind cannot slow down quickly enough and they crash too. Some horrendous pileups have happened like this, involving dozens of cars. Some pileups have involved more than 100 cars and a few have gone even higher.
The biggest pileup our country has ever known was in January of last year in Michigan along interstate 96 during dense fog. Around 200 cars were involved. At least two people died and 35 were injured.
It’s like a train wreck where the cars are not hooked together. In train wrecks where two trains collide, often more than 100 people are killed.
When we hear stories like Samuel’s we begin thinking that the problems we have faced and the destruction that has happened in our lives is like a train wreck, they are like the fog in Michigan. We crash and our children are affected. Eventually they could crash and their children after them
and their children after them
and their children
... and so on.
At this stage, we want to put our fingers in our ears. Samuel’s family life was a train wreck. If even the Bible people have so much trouble, what hope is there for me? Must all the problems and damage that I have suffered be borne by my children too? In other words:
If my life is a train wreck - can I still hope for God’s healing? If my family is a pile-up can we survive?
The answer of course is
Yes!
Healing can happen.
After all that negativity about Samuel’s life and seeing the direction his children’s lives went, how can I say that? Didn’t I just read multiple Scriptures explaining how Samuel’s life was a train wreck?
The answer of course, is yes. And the picture would be hopeless except for one element:
Samuel himself.
With God’s grace he over came the problems that he faced as a child and was still able to do great work for God.
But his children turned out badly. That is true. And it is probably a reflection of Samuel’s priorities. He spent a great deal of time traveling and doing political work and probably did not spend enough time with his sons. We never read that his sons accompanied him on his journeys.
But more important to the discussion is looking at Samuel’s success and seeing if there are things we can learn so that we, like Samuel, can rise above the dysfunction we inherited. We can also look for the spiritual lessons to teach our children, so that they can overcome the misfortune and problems they will inevitably live through.
First there are the prayers of Samuel’s mother
This is a mixed bag. Some of us have mothers that pray for us, and some of us do not. The healing we experience may be partially due to our praying mothers. Some of us have to seek it without the benefit of those prayers.
However, we can all find someone, even if it is not our mother, to pray for us. And we can all pray for someone else.
Why is this important? Can’t we pray for ourselves?
Yes, we can, and we should. Too often we do not. It seems selfish to us. But the Bible tells us to do it.
The fact is, though that we do not always remember to do it. And sometimes, spiritually, we just don’t feel like it. Maybe our lives are dark at the moment, and God seems far away, so what is the point of trying to speak with Him?
At times like those, we should have someone else praying for us.
At all times, you should be able to think of the name of a person who prays for you regularly. They should know that you consider them a resource. Go to them and tell them what you want them to pray about. Have an open relationship with this person ... so it should be someone you trust.
Step 1 to finding healing like Samuel’s
Find someone to pray for you.
And other people have the same problems. Your children will have the same problems. They need someone to pray for them too.
Samuel was not blind to the value of this truth. His mother prayed for him, and I am convinced that this taught him the value of praying for others. Look what he said even as he left leadership of the nation in the hands of Saul, the first king:
As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right.
1 Samuel 12:23 (NIV)
We get hung up on trying to teach others what is right, and sometimes we fail to do the first part and pray for them.
When we pray we are most aware that we are in God’s presence. Samuel’s constant prayers for others, like Saul and David, made him constantly aware that he was in the presence of God. Nothing transforms our character more, than an awareness that God is with us. It is comforting and encouraging. It reminds us that we are never alone, even when our life is like a train wreck. Even when we are praying for someone besides ourselves.
Step 2 to finding healing like Samuel’s
Pray for someone else.
Samuel was intentionally placed in the best surroundings possible ... with a purpose
Certainly, we have read that Eli was not the best father and that his children were bad people. However, Hannah, Samuel’s mother placed him in the best surroundings she could think of. She took him to the tabernacle to have him trained as a priest.
Jesus wants us to be a witness in the world, and He wants us to have friends that need Him. But we also need the fellowship of other believers and a place where we know the influence is positive. This does not always have to be church, it can also be circles of good positive friends with high moral standards and you and your children’s best interest at heart.
If we neglect surroundings that typify good values to us and our children, we will more often be tempted to chase bad values.
I like to watch TV in the evening. It is a habit that I had when I was a child, and now I have begun watching TV some again. In the evening, when I am watching TV, I sometimes like to snack.
I just get the munchies a little. So I pick up a few cookies. If I carry the bag to my chair, I may eat 5 or even 10 cookies before I realize it. That is way too many. After awhile, I start feeling a little ill from all the sugar.
So I get a bag of chips and munch. But I like chips with dip a lot better. So I go to the refrigerator and get some dip. Now that I have dip, I eat a lot more chips than I would eat without dip. Before I know it, I will eat a half a bag of chips.
On top of the cookies.
Then I realize that I have some ice cream in the freezer.
Sometimes Dawn will notice that I am munching like a garbage truck and ask me a very important question:
Are you hungry?
Then when I examine my feelings, I realize, yes, I am hungry. That’s why I am eating like a garbage truck. If I would have paused to figure that out sooner, she would have made me some healthy food and I would not be making my body into a storage bin for sugar and grease.
I would be feeding my hunger with something good instead of something bad.
Our minds and hearts have a need to be fed. They are constantly looking for information and stimulation. They will find it. If we do not feed them with something positive:
• Like the teachings of God
• Like the company of people who love us
• Like activities that encourage us and give us joy
• Like clean humor
Then our minds and hearts and those of our children will seek out other things and other people that stimulate them and fill them. And those things will not always be the best.
Make no mistake, if you don’t find the good stuff on purpose, the bad stuff will rush in to fill the void.
Step 3 to finding healing like Samuel’s
Frequently put yourself and your
children in positive and godly
surroundings that fill your heart and
mind with joy and positive values
Samuel dedicated himself to ministry work
Being a priest involved a few important activities.
• They cared for the tabernacle and its furnishings
• They instructed the people in God’s word
• They helped people with their sacrifices
It doesn’t seem like much until we realize that they had to do it for everyone.
This is what Samuel did, when Chapter 3, verse 1 says he ministered before the LORD.
One of the important things about the word ministry is the way we have learned to abuse it. We think of a minister as a leader. That is sometimes true. But the word actually means servant. A priest served the public by making sure their sacrifices were handled well and brought before God in the right way. They helped the people know what they needed to do.
The NT says that all believers are ministers. Pastors, teachers, evangelists ... our job is to train you and resource you for ministry. That means, every believer in God is meant to be a servant of others.
A thing that is very true. The more we focus on our own needs and problems, the more depressed we will become by them. Serving others is a way of getting outside ourselves and focusing on something that we can solve a small part of, and get the satisfaction of seeing another person’s needs met, and feeling their appreciation. If we don’t love ourselves much, it helps to receive the affection of others when we know we have done something worthy of appreciation. It may be as simple as washing the dishes for someone else. It may be helping them with a project. It may be walking them through complicated paperwork for a couple hours. It can take many forms. People can always use a little help.
Step 4 to finding healing like Samuel’s
Serve others
Samuel learned to value the truth
When Samuel was just a boy, God spoke to him. He was trying to sleep and he kept thinking it was Eli. But it was God. Finally, Eli figured out what was going on and told Samuel to listen to hear what God had to say.
The next morning, Eli asked him what God told him.
Samuel did not want to say, because it was not good news for Eli.
But Eli persisted and told him that he must tell the truth about what God had said.
It would not have been easy to do, but Samuel told his foster father what he needed to hear. He told him that God was not pleased with him. He told him about the sin in his home.
The old knights of Europe in the 11th and 12th century had a code. In that code was a line like this:
tell the truth even if it costs your life
We must learn to value the truth. We must learn to embrace it, even if it is painful. We must learn to tell it, even if it will make someone upset. We must be kind and loving about it, but we must tell the truth. Only when we face the truth about our lives can we begin to understand what causes our problems and how we can overcome them.
Step 5 to finding healing like Samuel’s
Value the truth
Samuel understood the value of repentance
When Samuel became an adult the people came to him with many problems. At one point, they said they wanted a good relationship with God. So Samuel told them what they needed to do.
They needed to get rid of their false gods.
He led them in a process of cleansing their homes of bad spiritual influence and turning to God instead.
This is called repentance
It is nothing more than recognizing a bad thing in your life, turning from it and embracing something good instead.
In our lives we take in all kinds of things that are wrong and bad for us
• harmful addictions
• foul language
• laziness
• negative attitudes about people
• neglect of our spiritual life with God
These things have got to be cleaned out of our lives. Sometimes it takes hard work and even help from others. But they must be cleaned out and a path opened for a relationship with God if we are to experience the healing that Samuel had.
Step 6 to finding healing like Samuel’s
Turn from our sin and turn to God instead
We see Samuel as a great man. But just like us, Samuel was successful in some things and a failure in others. He was a great leader, but he could have done much better as a family man.
This is a note of hope for us. The fact that you are here is an indication that you are concerned about your family life. Perhaps you find it easier to attain success in other areas of your life. That is good.
It is now time to look at the elements that made Samuel successful and apply them to areas in our lives that we are struggling.
• It may be our families
• It may be our spiritual lives
• It may be our work lives
• It may be our finances
It could be many things. But Samuel shows us some important elements of training for success, even if it is in the middle of a train wreck. In God’s grace we can move forward and apply His word.
