Scripture Daily

Context No. 1738 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

Context · Reflection

1 Samuel 9:12-16: in context

12They answered them and said, “He is. Behold, he is before you. Hurry now, for he has come today into the city; for the people have a sacrifice today in the high place. 13As soon as you have come into the city, you will immediately find him before he goes up to the high place to eat; for the people will not eat until he comes, because he blesses the sacrifice. Afterwards those who are invited eat. Now therefore go up; for at this time you will find him.” 14They went up to the city. As they came within the city, behold, Samuel came out toward them to go up to the high place. 15Now the LORD had revealed to Samuel a day before Saul came, saying, 16“Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man out of the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He will save my people out of the hand of the Philistines; for I have looked upon my people, because their cry has come to me.”

Saul, a young man sent by his father to find some lost donkeys, has searched in vain and, at his servant's suggestion, comes to a town to consult the seer, Samuel. The townspeople tell him Samuel is here today for a sacrifice; hurry and you will find him. And unknown to Saul, God has already prepared the meeting: the day before, God had told Samuel, tomorrow I will send you a man from Benjamin; anoint him prince over my people, for I have seen my people's affliction and their cry has come to me.

Saul thought he was looking for lost donkeys. He was, in fact, being led to his anointing as king. The errand that brought him to that town was ordinary and even frustrating, a fruitless search for stray animals; and behind it, unseen, God was at work, steering Saul's steps toward Samuel, toward a calling Saul could not have imagined when he set out. God had arranged it all in advance, telling Samuel the day before to expect him. What looked to Saul like a mundane, disappointing errand was the very path God was using to bring him to his purpose. There is a quiet comfort in this about the hidden providence of God in our ordinary lives. We go about our errands, our routines, our disappointments, the mundane searches that fill our days, often with no sense that anything significant is afoot. And God is at work in them, steering our steps toward purposes we cannot see, arranging meetings and turns of events that we experience as chance or even frustration. Saul's lost donkeys led him to a throne. We rarely see, in the moment, where God is leading through the ordinary paths we walk; but the God who guided Saul's fruitless search toward his calling is at work in our ordinary comings and goings too. The errand that feels pointless, the detour that frustrates us, the mundane day that seems to hold nothing, may be the very path along which God is quietly leading us toward something we cannot yet see. Behind the search for lost donkeys, God was preparing a kingdom.

Can I trust that God is at work in the ordinary and even frustrating paths of my life, the routines, the errands, the disappointments, steering my steps toward purposes I cannot yet see, as he led Saul, looking for lost donkeys, toward the calling God had prepared for him the day before?

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