Samuel, David, and What It Might Mean That God Keeps Calling the Unprepared on an Ordinary Tuesday (In the Middle of It All, Part 2)
What were you doing at 12 years of age? I was drawing a lot, singing and trying to figure out algebra. I remember my favorite butterfly shirt and blue corduroy overalls. I was homeschooled and so I would dress up in my favorite outfits just to take a walk outside. I loved any kind of art and was really starting to get somewhere playing the piano. I was extremely sensitive and compassionate and I was just starting to learn how to use it, like with looking after my little sister. At least from my perspective it took quite a lot of understanding when chasing after her once she tore off her diaper and ran down the street cackling like a little maniac. Hundreds of years before I made my first cherry pie from scratch, another 12 year old was trying to sleep but kept hearing his name being called. He got up several times thinking that it was his mentor and guardian in the next room only to find out it was Almighty God that was giving him a higher calling. Lying in the dark, slightly confused and probably drowsy, Samuel eventually got the message. He became one of the greatest leaders and prophets of Israel, and it all started with his response: “Your servant hears.” Another youth just two generations later was also called to lead and to serve his people. Though his calling began somewhere between a pasture and the slaying of a giant. He was a musician, a warrior and a king. He betrayed a brother, abandoned his children and he cried out to God for forgiveness. His calling ended with it being said of him that he was a man after God’s very own heart.
In the letter written to a young man named Timothy, we find the following words, “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” This passage not only addresses the age-bias that many young people feel when confronted with living with integrity, it also tells us that even the young can have a calling from God and a purpose they are called to walk in both now and in the future.
That Paul (the author of the letter to Timothy) found it necessary to include this instruction at all tells us that underestimating younger people is not new, but is thousands of years old. Samuel was middle school age, perhaps David would have been in high school. And yet, their elders dismissed their intention to be used greatly by God. It sounds familiar today. It may be that parents and elders wish for their youth to be safe, but safety and calling are not always on the same path. Mingled with this desire for safety is something else entirely … the attitude that the older can always do it better, so why should they step aside?
I fear that often the young generation is no better. Be it teens, twenties, thirties or more, often we do not esteem silver hair. We take for granted when they live their lives with integrity and wisdom and we don’t really see them until they misstep. I wonder if it has been every generation since Adam and Eve that is tempted by this fate: ridiculing the older and then growing up only to realize how difficult it is to age, be living proof of your convictions and every decision you’ve made, but then forget what it is to be young. The cycle perpetuates itself. Well, perhaps being in the middle of it all is the right place to be, perhaps I’m at the golden age.
While this feels like a crisis, looking at it through a historical lens it’s more like a normal Tuesday. What if this cycle is only part of the problem? What if our blindness is? History, as it turns out, rhymes … or so I’ve been told.
References and Inspirations
Howe, Neil. The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End.Avid Reader Press, 2023.
Identity Exchange. YouTube, uploaded by Identity Exchange, https://www.youtube.com/@identityexchange. Accessed 25 Apr. 2026.
Manchester, William, and Paul Reid. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume III: Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965. Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy. Broadway Books, 1997.The Crown. Created by Peter Morgan, performances by Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, and Imelda Staunton, Netflix, 2016–present.
The Crown. Created by Peter Morgan, performances by Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, and Imelda Staunton, Netflix, 2016–present.