Scripture Daily

Context No. 2134 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

Context · Reflection

1 Samuel 9:1-5: in context

1Now there was a man of Benjamin, whose name was Kish the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah, the son of a Benjamite, a mighty man of valor. 2He had a son whose name was Saul, an impressive young man; and there was not among the children of Israel a more handsome person than he. From his shoulders and upward he was taller than any of the people. 3The donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, were lost. Kish said to Saul his son, “Now take one of the servants with you, and arise, go look for the donkeys.” 4He passed through the hill country of Ephraim, and passed through the land of Shalishah, but they didn’t find them. Then they passed through the land of Shaalim, and they weren’t there. Then he passed through the land of the Benjamites, but they didn’t find them. 5When they had come to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant who was with him, “Come! Let’s return, lest my father stop caring about the donkeys and be anxious for us.”

The story of how Saul became Israel's first king begins not with grand ambition but with a lost herd of donkeys. Saul's father, Kish, tells his son to take a servant and go look for the missing animals. Saul obeys, and they search through region after region, the hill country of Ephraim, the land of Shalishah, the land of Shaalim, without finding them. It is an ordinary errand, a mundane task of obedient duty. And yet this very errand is the path by which God will lead Saul to Samuel, and to the throne.

There is something worth noticing in how Saul's calling begins. He is not seeking greatness, not looking for a throne, not on some grand quest. He is simply doing an ordinary duty: obeying his father, searching for lost donkeys, a mundane and unglamorous task. And it is in the midst of this ordinary duty that God's call meets him, for the search leads him to Samuel, who will anoint him king. God did not summon Saul out of some heroic pursuit, but met him as he was faithfully doing an everyday task. This is often how God works. He meets and calls people not usually when they are seeking greatness, but in the midst of their ordinary, faithful duties. David was tending sheep; Gideon was threshing wheat; Elisha was plowing; the disciples were mending their nets. God's call comes to people at their ordinary work, in the midst of their everyday duties, not to those grasping for greatness but to those faithfully doing the task at hand. Saul was looking for donkeys when God's larger purpose found him. This dignifies the ordinary duties we are engaged in, and it corrects our sense that God's call must come in some extraordinary moment. We can imagine that God works only in dramatic circumstances, and overlook the ordinary duties of our daily lives as too mundane for his purposes. But God met Saul in the search for lost donkeys; he meets people in their everyday tasks, and the ordinary duty faithfully done may be the very place his call finds us. A man's steps are from the LORD, the proverb says; how then can anyone understand his own way? Saul did not know, as he searched for the donkeys, that God was leading him to a throne. This calls us to be faithful in our ordinary duties, trusting that God can meet us and work his purposes there. We need not despise the mundane tasks of our lives as beneath God's notice, nor seek his call only in extraordinary moments. Saul was faithfully doing an ordinary duty when God's call found him; and God still meets people in the midst of their everyday tasks, so that we may do our ordinary duties faithfully, open to the God who leads us by mundane paths toward purposes we cannot yet see.

Do I overlook the ordinary duties of my daily life as too mundane for God's purposes, imagining his call must come only in some extraordinary moment, and can Saul, who was simply obeying his father and searching for lost donkeys when God's call led him toward the throne, teach me that God meets people in the midst of their everyday tasks, so that I do my ordinary duties faithfully, open to the God who leads by mundane paths toward purposes I cannot yet see?

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