“Dear Ears, Lame Limbs”

1 Samuel 3: 13, 18b: “When they came to the land of Zuph … Behold now, there is a man of God in this city …” What was Samuel, the great prophet and priest, doing in a small town like Zuph, unknown to any map, and unheard of otherwise? Zuph was the provincial home of Samuel and his ancestors. (1 Samuel 1: 1) In other words, Samuel had retired and gone home. After all, that’s what he had told the people to do (1 Samuel 8: 22). But although the people may have been finished with Samuel, God was far from finished with him; and he worked out the circumstances with lost donkeys so that the retired prophet and the soon-to-be king would come together. Further, Samuel continued to serve through the anointing of two more kings and a couple of decades of still-anointed ministry. Retirement is a foreign concept to God. A person’s ministry may change, but never stop!