The Wonder of the Cross – 40 Days with the Music of Vicky Beeching
Day 10 – Saturday after Lent 1 – Listening
To Read:
From the Scriptures:
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and he said, ‘Here I am!’ 5 and ran to Eli and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call; lie down again.’ So he went and lay down. 6 The Lord called again, ‘Samuel!. Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call, my son; lie down again.’ 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
8 The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. 9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, ‘Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”’ So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10 Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’
(1 Samuel 3v1-10)
From Vicky Beeching:
Listening
More than just another song
More than one more melody
Maybe what we need is silence
Maybe what we need is to be still
And listen for the still small voice
‘Cause we don’t want to miss a whisper
Jesus now we lean in closer
And we wait
Speak Lord Your servants are listening
Your servants are listening
Speak Lord Your servants are listening
Your servants are listening
Lord I want to know Your heart
Lord I want to know what moves You
To understand what makes You weep
To understand what makes You sing and smile
This will be my life’s one quest
To seek the One whose love has sought me
Gazing on Your shining beauty
All my days
Chorus
Just one word from You
And everything changes
Just one word from You
Will bring me life (x4)
Come and bring me life
How I need Your life
Chorus
To Listen:
To Reflect:
This God stuff, it sounds so easy doesn’t it?
God has a plan to love us perfectly. All we need do is follow the instructions and as the Irish pray we will:
….be in Heaven, a full half hour before the devil knows [we] are dead!
Follow the instructions? If only things were that simple!
I’m not sure it is a trait reserved for the male of the species but does everyone else do as I do and refuse to read let alone follow instructions? Every single item I have ever made, from Airfix models I used to buy with hard-earned pocket money as a boy to flat-pack furniture that I have mis-assembled in my more ‘responsible’ years, my first rule of construction is always to throw away the instructions! I am so blessed that I have a very loving and forgiving wife and three very tolerant sons. Especially as one of them is an engineer!
Why is it that we are so very bad at following instructions? Why can’t we learn, as did the young Samuel to stop and say, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening?’ More often than not, when I find myself in need of the presence of God (as if we aren’t always in the presence of God) my action is not, with Vicky to listen to whispers from God, but instead to proclaim – complain even, ‘Listen Lord, it’s your servant speaking….’
I am so blessed that I have been given a vocation (I guess that means I did listen to the voice of our Beloved at least once…) which demands that I take time out during the year to talk less and listen more by going away on a retreat.
However, as you may well know yourself, setting aside the time to turn my life from telling God what I want to listening to the instructions to walk in the footsteps of Christ, does not always mean I use that time to do the very thing my soul desires! (cf. Romans 7v21-25)
I have learnt that if I don’t aim to listen, if I don’t decide to set aside other voices – especially my own – I stand no chance of hearing any of the gentle whispers of Jesus. I have learnt to plan to stop listening to other things so that I may hear the words of the One Who Loves us Best more clearly.
I am blessed that once a month I am Duty Canon at our cathedral in Bury St Edmunds and I can do nothing other than spend the whole day in church listening to others and to God. Each year a beloved friend gives me the use of their attic flat on a Scottish island for a week. It has no TV, no Internet, and very poor mobile phone signal. Once I have got the fidgets out of my own life (usually the February meeting of the General Synod of the Church of England!) I am in a place of pure bliss and spend all day waiting to hear whispers from the Beloved.
It would be my prayer that all of us would be able to find such places of silence where the still small voice is the only sound tickling our ears. In the meantime we have these 40 Days, of which one-quarter have already passed. Time to check again what we aimed to do at the beginning. Time to see if they ‘fit’ the call of our Beloved for us at this time. (Note: it is OK to change a Lenten Discipline in the middle of Lent if it is proving unworkable). Time to stop whatever we are doing and ask with Vicky and the young child Samuel for;
Just one word from You
And everything changes
Just one word from You
Will bring me life
To Pray:
Thyself, O my God,
Thyself for Thine own sake
above all things I love.
Thyself as my last end I long for.
Make me therefore in this life present
alway to love Thee before all things,
to seek Thee in all things,
and at the last in the life to come
to find and to keep Thee for ever.
(Thomas Bradwardine – Archbishop of Canterbury)
To Do:
John Stott, Biblical Scholar and minister, encouraged his followers to develop the habit of intentional holy reading and reflection for;
One hour a day
Half a day a week
A day a month
A week a year
His patter may be a challenge for many of us to imitate but we can follow a similar pattern if not what he suggests.
Plan to do some intentional listening to the Voice of our Beloved in one form or another;
Each day
Each week
Each month
Each year
oooOOOooo
If you would like to find out more about Vicky and her work here is a link to her Wikipedia entry. For a fuller picture her autobiography ‘Undivided’ is highly recommended
Please Note: These reflections are also published on my blog: suffolkvicarhomes.com on Bluesky as @suffolkvicar.bsky.social, and on my public Facebook page Suffolk Vicar – Rev Andrew Dotchin.
If you would like them as a daily email please send a request to revdotchin@gmail.com
If you have enjoyed reading them please make a donation to The Clergy Support Trust who provide generous grants to help clergy.
Acknowledgements:
These Reflections, ‘The Wonder of the Cross – 40 Days with the Music of Vicky Beaching’ are copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2026 and may be reproduced without charge on condition that their source is acknowledged.
All of the music on the video clips are from YouTube and are © Vicky Beeching.
If you enjoy listening to her songs please consider buying her recordings. A full discography and other information about Vicky can be found on her website vickybeeching.com.
Scripture quotations are from The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Prayers are from A Diary of Prayer compiled by Elizabeth Goudge and are copyright © 1966 The Estate of Elizabeth Goudge.
Suffolk Vicar 