There is a scene in the Bible that any Pathfinder your age understands instantly: a boy lying in the dark, hearing someone call his name, with no idea who it was. No ghost, no dream. It is the beginning of the story of Samuel, the boy who became one of the greatest prophets of Israel because he learned something both simple and hard at the same time: to stop and listen.
Samuel's life begins before he was born, with the prayer of a mother named Hannah. And it reaches its peak when, as an adult, he has to choose a king by looking at something no one else could see. Between those two ends sits a very short sentence worth carrying in your backpack: "Speak, for your servant is listening" (1 Samuel 3:10, NIV).
This text tells that story in full and shows how it touches your quiet moment with God, whether you are an Adventist or not, and how a Counselor can use it in the Unit devotional.
It started with a mother's prayer
Before Samuel existed, there was Hannah's pain. She had no children and suffered over it for years. On one of her visits to the sanctuary of Shiloh, the place where the ark stood and where the people worshiped God in that era, Hannah prayed so intensely, moving her lips without a sound, that the priest Eli thought she was drunk. She explained that she was only pouring out her heart before God.
In the middle of that prayer, Hannah made a promise: if she had a son, she would give him to the service of God for his whole life. The son was born and she named him Samuel. When the boy was already weaned, still very small, Hannah took him back to Shiloh and fulfilled what she had promised. Her words were recorded: "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him" (1 Samuel 1:27, NIV).
Notice the detail many people skip: Samuel was dedicated to God by someone else's decision, his mother's. He did not choose it. And even so, over time, the calling stopped being just Hannah's plan and became his own. Maybe you joined the Club because your parents wanted you to, or because a friend invited you. That takes nothing away. Samuel's story shows that something that starts through outside influence can later become your own conviction.
Growing up serving, even without understanding everything
Samuel grew up inside the sanctuary, helping old Eli with the tasks of worship. He was a boy doing grown-up work: opening the doors in the morning, tending the lamps, serving. The Bible records that "the boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli" (1 Samuel 3:1, NIV). Nothing spectacular, no voice from heaven yet. Just routine and responsibility.
That period of Israel was not easy spiritually. The same verse says that "the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions." Eli's own sons, who served in the sanctuary, treated sacred things with contempt. Samuel learned to serve in an environment where many people around him did not take God seriously.
This speaks directly to the real life of a Pathfinder. A good part of your walk with God will happen in the ordinary: arriving early at the meeting, setting up the tent, meeting a Class requirement, helping the Unit with no spotlight at all. Samuel was faithful in the small things before being called to the great ones. The listening he later developed was born from that faithfulness with no audience.
The night God called him by name
The best-known scene happens at night. Samuel was already lying down, and the lamp of the sanctuary had not yet gone out, when he heard a voice: "Samuel!" He ran to Eli thinking the priest had called him. Eli answered that he had not called and told the boy to go back to sleep. It happened again. And again. Three times Samuel ran to Eli, convinced it was him.
The text explains the reason for this confusion in a very human way: "Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him" (1 Samuel 3:7, NIV). He heard the voice, but did not know whose it was. On the third time, Eli understood what was happening and gave the boy the right instruction: if the voice calls again, answer "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening" (1 Samuel 3:9, NIV).
Hold on to this point, because it is the heart of everything: Samuel needed someone older to recognize the voice of God. On his own, he was lost. It was an attentive adult, despite his own failures, who helped him interpret the experience. In the Club, that role often belongs to your Counselor. No one has to figure God out completely alone, and asking for help to understand is not a sign of weak faith.
Read alsoJohn the Baptist: the voice that prepared the way"Speak, for your servant is listening"
When the voice returned, this time God came and stood there, calling as before: "Samuel! Samuel!" And the boy answered with the sentence that has crossed millennia: "Speak, for your servant is listening" (1 Samuel 3:10, NIV). In the words Eli had taught, the name of the Lord also appeared: "Speak, Lord." Short, direct, no fuss.
Notice the order of the words. Samuel did not say "listen, for your servant wants to speak." He reversed the logic that usually rules our prayers. We normally come before God with a list of requests and leave before waiting for any answer. Samuel placed himself in the position of one who receives, not one who only transmits. First he stays quiet, then he listens.
That first message Samuel received, by the way, was heavy: a warning of judgment over the house of Eli. The boy was afraid to tell it in the morning, but he told everything, hiding nothing. Truly hearing God includes accepting what is hard to hear. If you want to learn to talk with God with this kind of honesty, the text about how to pray helps you take the first steps.
From the sanctuary boy to the prophet who anointed kings
Over time, the Bible sums up the result of Samuel's life in a beautiful image: "The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel's words fall to the ground" (1 Samuel 3:19, NIV). None of his words falling to the ground means that what he spoke on God's behalf came true. He became the last of the judges of Israel, the leader who guided the people before the age of kings.
It was Samuel who anointed the first king of Israel, Saul, and it was also he who, later, anointed David while still a boy. And here appears one of the strongest lessons tied to listening. When it came time to choose the new king among the sons of Jesse, Samuel was impressed by the tallest and best-looking one. God corrected him at once: "People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7, NIV).
Samuel spent his life learning to listen instead of looking only at the surface. That is why he was able to recognize a future king in a teenager who tended sheep and whom his own brothers had left out. It applies to you and to anyone who leads: we decide a lot of things by appearance, by clothes, by visible performance. God sees what is inside, and learning to listen is precisely learning to see deeper.
How to recognize the voice of God amid the noise
Maybe you are wondering, with good reason, whether God still calls people by name in the dark as he did with Samuel. For Seventh-day Adventists, and for most Christians, the main way God speaks today is the Bible, with the Holy Spirit working in a person's conscience. The idea is not to expect a supernatural voice in the bedroom. It is to open the Word with the same heart Samuel had: ready to listen.
The problem is that modern life has far more noise than the sanctuary of Shiloh. Notifications, short videos, message groups, music all the time. Samuel heard the voice in a moment of silence, lying down, with no screen in his hand. From this you can draw a concrete practice: set aside a few minutes a day in a quiet place, with no phone nearby, to read a passage of the Bible and pray slowly. It is simple and it changes everything.
How do you know if a thought comes from God or is just your own idea? Three filters help a lot. The first is consistency with the Bible, because God does not contradict his own Word. The second is the practical effect: a path that comes from God leads you to love people more and to do good, instead of feeding pride and selfishness. The third is confirmation from people mature in the faith, like your parents, your pastor, or your Counselor. Samuel used exactly that last filter when he asked Eli for help.
Bringing Samuel into the Unit devotional
For the Counselors and Directors reading this, Samuel's story makes a very good meeting devotional, and not only for the little ones. Start with the night scene, with the lights a little low if possible, and ask the Pathfinders to close their eyes while you read 1 Samuel 3. The idea of a boy hearing the voice and not recognizing it holds the attention of any age group.
After the reading, propose a two-minute silence exercise. Two minutes seems short, but for teenagers used to constant stimulation it is an eternity. The point is not to feel anything magical, but to experience how rare it is for us to be quiet on purpose. Then each one can write on a strip of paper an area of life in which they want to learn to listen more to God, and the answer "Speak, for your servant is listening" can become the Unit's closing prayer.
The Counselor's role in this story is Eli's: someone more experienced who helps the younger one interpret what they feel. Eli failed at many things with his own sons, but he got it right when he guided Samuel that night. That is a relief for anyone who leads and feels imperfect. If you want to go deeper into this role of mentoring, the material about how to be a good Counselor offers practical paths.