Then the Lord called, ‘Samuel!’. Samuel answered, ‘Hineni: Here I am’. (1 Samuel 3:4)
Around this time last year, on a chilly November day in the main lecture hall of St John’s in Durham, something remarkable was happening. Gathered there, having travelled from scattered locations across the country, were nearly seventy young women, many of them students… and all of them were saying ‘yes’ to Jesus.
They were all there because they had the spiritual inkling, the prayerful hunch, the persistent nagging feeling that God might be asking them to become church leaders in the Church of England. The atmosphere in the hall crackled and sparked with the sense of holy possibility that comes from the presence of the Spirit of God.
I first experienced this sense of calling that had led me to this point when studying at York Uni - there's something about that time as a student that provokes you to explore what God is calling you to, what you're called to say 'yes' to in your life.
We called the event Named, Known and Called – because, in Christ, that is true of every one of us. But what does that really mean?
The word ‘hineni’ (hee-nay-nee), which Samuel replies when he hears the Lord calling him, literally means ‘here I am’. It is such a simple statement, and yet conveys so much.
Hineni is a statement of being, of rootedness, of recognition – because to know what you should do with your life requires first that you know who you are. To say ‘hineni’ is to lay yourself totally open to God, to acknowledge that he already knows your flaws and failings, but at the same time to affirm that you are grounded in your heavenly Father’s love, adored and accepted by him.
But it is not static. It also contains within it echoes of God’s own name, ‘I am’, calling us to grow more and more into bearers of Jesus’ likeness. To utter ‘hineni’ presses us towards a dynamic obedience, and willingness to keep going as the Spirit of God leads us onwards, saying, like Isaiah, ‘here I am, send me’ (Isaiah 6:8).
And more than that – we are called to keep responding ‘hineni’, as we move through the seasons of our lives. My own ‘spiritual inkling’ that God was calling me to leadership in his Church developed whilst I was at university, but I have never stopped having to say ‘hineni’, ‘here I am, Lord’, as he calls me to new and different things.
I am full of joy at the prospect of getting to say it once again, alongside yet more young women at the next Named, Known and Called event in a couple of weeks.
It is a great reminder of the unshakable truth that we are all named, known and called by God, though that truth looks different for each of us.
God knows you, and is calling you. How will you answer?
Named, Known and Called, a free day conference for young women exploring ordination, will be happening at Cranmer Hall in Durham in a couple of weeks’ time, on Saturday 3rd December 2016. There are still some places left, and we would love to see you there!
More details here:
www.namedknowncalled.org.uk
www.facebook.com/namedknowncalled
www.twitter.com/nkcconf
Details of similar events for exploring ordination, for both men and women, can be found here:
www.callwaiting.org.uk/explore/events
