If you're like me, you receive a lot of messages --- voice mails, emails, instant messages, text messages and more. Some of these messages come from people we know. Other times, we don't know who the message is from until we open it or listen to it.

In today's first reading, the young Samuel hears a voice calling his name. He wakes up his mentor Eli and says, "Here I am. You called me." Eli says, in effect, "It wasn't me." This happens three times, until Eli finally figures out that it is the voice of God that Samuel is hearing. "At that time," we're told, "Samuel was not familiar with the Lord."

In today's Gospel reading, John the Baptist is with two of his disciples when he sees Jesus for the first time. "Behold the Lamb of God," John says. "The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus."

John the Baptist, it might be said, is familiar with the Lord. He doesn't need any help recognizing the presence of God in his midst. In fact, he helps others to recognize and to follow Jesus.

Most of the time, I feel more like the young Samuel than I do John the Baptist. I experience so many voices in my life. If they aren't electronic messages from individuals, they are the messages I get from television, movies and magazines. There are many voices calling us to follow --- the way of materialism, beauty and consumption. We just need the right home, the right career, the right body, the right financial plan, and we will be happy.

These messages are constant. As are the voices of friends, family and coworkers, and the expectations they articulate directly and indirectly. Amidst all this, how am I supposed to hear the voice of God? How am I supposed to recognize the voice of God when I hear it?

I'm not sure I know the answer. Perhaps becoming "familiar with the Lord" is a lot like becoming familiar with a person. I need to spend more time together --- in prayer, Scripture and church. But I suspect it has as much to do with service as study. John the Baptist had been out in the wilderness, praying and fasting no doubt, but also reaching out to the people of Israel and calling people to repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Our challenge is to recognize the voice of God in our world and our lives, and to follow that voice. I'll be the first to admit that neither one of these challenges is easy to accomplish. Even when I do feel called by God to reach out beyond myself, I often resist the change or inconvenience or risk that it would require.

The Lamb of God is among us. Do we see him? As we begin a new year, and make all the traditional resolutions to make this year better than the last, perhaps we ought to think first along these lines. How can I listen more carefully for God's voice this year? How can I follow that voice, instead of the voices calling me to succeed on the terms of popular culture rather than on the terms of the Gospel? How can I become more familiar with the Lord?

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.