Monday, January 16, 2017

While Looking for Donkeys

 

[Drawing of Saul kneeling before Samuel]


Now the donkeys belonging to Saul’s
father Kish were lost, and Kish said to
his son Saul, “Take one of the servants
with you and go and look for the donkeys.”
—1 Samuel 9:3

The surprising event described in the Scripture above, in my own experience, might as well have read: “Now, while she was vacuuming the bedroom.”

In just such a setting, a life-changing phone call came to me from the music supervisor I did not know from a nearby town. A recently hired music teacher had resigned. They needed a long-term substitute. I later learned she had resigned because of the behavior of the unruly students.

I took the position on a temporary basis. Two months later, I had a full-time job. And, 26 years later, I retired from that same school system.

Scripture shows us many examples of the way God turns the lives of ordinary people in a new direction. Saul, the son of Kish, while looking for donkeys came upon the prophet Samuel, whom God had prepared. To Saul’s complete surprise, he received an invitation to dinner and a proposal to become the first king of Israel.

Another man, shepherding the flock of his father-in-law, was jolted out of a hum-drum day with the sight of a burning bush. Drawing near, he hear a call from God to help deliver the Israelites from servitude in Egypt and lead them through the wilderness for forty years. You can read this story of Moses beginning in Exodus 3.

Then, in Genesis 24, we read of Rebekah. She had a custom of drawing water at the well with the other women of her village during the evening. One evening, as she went about what she believed to be a normal “run” for the water, she met a man sent by the prophet Abraham to search for a wife for his son Isaac. God led this servant to her. The servant convinced Rebekah of God’s call and took her back to become part of the patriarchal family whose line eventually produced the Messiah.

We do well to consider the ways in which God has made critical “turns” in our lives. Most of these cannot be explained away as co-incidences. They happen as God’s sudden way of answering prayer, or introducing us to a new place in which to serve Him.

Whether or not we realize it, God prepares us over a long period of ordinary, routine days. He hears every prayer and has a way in which to answer. Sometimes He does so with an extraordinary occurrence. Other times, He answers with the word, “Wait!”

Have you prayed and prayed until you begin to think God has ignored your requests and that, for some reason, His answer must be “No!”? Instead of becoming discouraged, believe that God has you in His mind, and can turn your situation around with a remarkable twist in your daily life.

Trust Him to show you His direction in astonishing ways. And, have your heart ready to receive His surprise!