The first verse of I Samuel 3 gives us this statement: “…And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision.”
For some time, there had not been a prophet ministering to God’s people. There was not a place that you could go to hear God’s Word preached. There was not a minister of God to whom you could go to seek answers from God when you did not know what to do. The Old Testament believer did not know the abiding presence and comfort of the Holy Spirit in the same way that we do today.
All of this adds up to making the Word of the Lord – when it could be found – very precious. Things that are scarce become more valuable to the possessor. The man who finds the gold nugget – the lady who finds the ruby – the child who finds the priceless coin – will cherish them, or trade them for something that will change their lives.
One of the dangers that we face today is that of God’s Word being diluted. Instead of being scarce and precious – it is widely available, but watered down, and so we take it for granted. We believe that when we want it, we can have it – any time and anywhere. We can walk into any dollar store and buy a cheap Bible – any flavor we want. We can go to any street corner and walk into whatever brand of church we want, to have our ears tickled. We can turn our radio dial and tune in just enough strength of the Word of God that we can tolerate, along with a good amount of entertainment to make it worth it.
Along with these practices, we are regretfully dropping much of the Word of the Lord on the ground - the precious, precious Word of God; the life-changing Word of God. The thing is – it is NOT the scarcity that makes it precious; that is just our perception. It is the fact that it is the very life-changing Word OF GOD that makes it valuable.
Toward the end of the chapter, I Samuel 3:19 tells us what young Samuel did with these precious Words: “And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.”
Because ALL of the Words of the LORD were precious to Samuel, and because he took good care of them, letting NONE of them fall, God did something special in Samuel’s life. God used Samuel to fix the open vision problem in the Land of Israel. The chapter ends by telling us, “And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the LORD. And the LORD appeared again in Shiloh: for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD.”