Now the boy Samuel continued serving the Lord under Eli’s supervision. Word from the Lord was rare in those days; revelatory visions were infrequent. -1st Samuel 3:1 (NET Bible)

Lately I’ve gotten into some discussions regarding the work of the Holy Spirit, and how He’s working today. I was impressed when I came across this verse, since it says clearly that God was not revealing Himself very [...]]]>

Now the boy Samuel continued serving the Lord under Eli’s supervision. Word from the Lord was rare in those days; revelatory visions were infrequent.
-1st Samuel 3:1 (NET Bible)

Lately I’ve gotten into some discussions regarding the work of the Holy Spirit, and how He’s working today. I was impressed when I came across this verse, since it says clearly that God was not revealing Himself very often through visions. What’s interesting about this verse is what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t imply that it was because of Israel’s sin or apathy (which, though it might be the case, cannot be extracted from this verse). The Lord chose not to reveal Himself through open visions for a while – who are we to limit the work of God, or say how He should work?

When the time came for God to reveal Himself to Samuel (described in the rest of chapter 3), he did it in an unmistakeable way. Even though the boy Samuel got it wrong three times (going to Eli, thinking it was him that was calling), God continued to speak until Samuel realized what was going on.

I see God’s revelation as unmistakable and unavoidable. Even Paul, when he wanted to go into Asia to preach the gospel, the Holy Spirit had other plans for him (Acts 16:6-10). He was simply fulfilling God’s general will of “Going into all the world and preaching the gospel”, and in the course of working to that end, God made sure to guide him in the direction that He wanted Paul to go.

Neither Samuel nor Paul sought a special revelation from God, they simply served Him faithfully with what revelation they had (scripture), and God worked out specifics for them. I don’t think we should be looking for the next vision or “special word from God” to come down from Heaven. We have a lot to work with already. God cannot be cornered into a specific workflow; He will reveal or not reveal what He wants, and when He does, it will be unmistakable. Just as I won’t condemn as a hoax the reports of visions of Jesus Christ in the muslim world, I won’t say that the simple, tried-and-true evangelism and discipleship isn’t the work of the Holy Spirit, either. If Christ is exalted, lives are changed, and people are being convinced of sin, righteousness and judgement (Jn 16:8), the Holy Spirit is at work. Revelatory visions can be infrequent, and that’s OK.

God is not so unjust to hide his specific will from those that are working to fulfill His general will. It’s not a treasure hunt.

2 Peter 1:3-10 – Deuteronomy 30:11-14

Instead of putting it in a sidebar, they decided to put the links in a paragraph that implies a flow of [...]]]> Browsing through Web Design Ledger’s latest post, I noticed a link that caught my eye — it was to Mooze Design, a graphic design agency. What I noticed was their top menu navigation.

Instead of putting it in a sidebar, they decided to put the links in a paragraph that implies a flow of events. In user-centered design, when in the planning stages of a website, the designer should have a list of site objectives for the site owner (user should sign up for weekly newsletter), and site objectives for the user (user type x will want to browse photos). The owner’s objectives remain typically fairly hidden, and rarely does it show up so obviously as this site. However, it struck me as refreshing to see the level of transparency. The website is saying from the beginning “Hi, we’re Mooze, and this is what we’d like to get out of our meeting” There are no ulterior motives. It works for them.

I just finished a tutorial on how to make an alarm that opens Pandora at a specific time. It’s awesome.

check it out.

Cheers,

Alex