Monday, January
15, 2018
When they reached the edge of town, Samuel told Saul to send
his servant on ahead. After the servant
was gone, Samuel said, “Stay here, for I have received a special message for
you from God.” Then Samuel took a flask
of olive oil and poured it over Saul’s head. He kissed Saul and said, “I am doing this
because the Lord has appointed you to be the ruler over Israel, his
special possession. When you leave me
today, you will see two men beside Rachel’s tomb at Zelzah, on the border of
Benjamin. They will tell you that the
donkeys have been found and that your father has stopped worrying about them
and is now worried about you. He is
asking, ‘Have you seen my son?’ “When
you get to the oak of Tabor, you will see three men coming toward you who are
on their way to worship God at Bethel. One
will be bringing three young goats, another will have three loaves of bread,
and the third will be carrying a wineskin full of wine. They will greet
you and offer you two of the loaves, which you are to accept. “When you arrive at Gibeah of God, where
the garrison of the Philistines is located, you will meet a band of prophets
coming down from the place of worship. They will be playing a harp, a tambourine, a
flute, and a lyre, and they will be prophesying. At that time the Spirit
of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with
them. You will be changed into a
different person. After these signs take
place, do what must be done, for God is with you.
1 Samuel 9:27-10:7(NLT)
If you rewind a little in
this story Saul is wandering the countryside looking for lost donkeys. His father had sent him and his brothers to
scour the land for the wandering beasts.
In the midst of the most mundane of everyday tasks, God’s prophet,
Samuel shows up to crown a donkey-hunting nobody king in Israel; go figure! To confirm what’s happening the prophet tells
young Saul he will meet two men at a specific tomb who will tell him to come
home because the donkeys are found and his father is now worried about his
son. In addition, he’ll meet three other
men herding goats, carrying wine and bread, which they would offer to him. And in addition to that, he would meet a band
of preaching prophets, striking up the band music while they’re preaching…and
Saul would join in prophesying loudly! And
just for good measure Samuel even names the instruments of this symphonic
orchestra of preachers! If you fast
forward in this chapter you find it all came true.
What does it all
mean? There are several valuable lessons
here; lessons beyond learning there are actually preachers who can do music
(but in my case that would be a miracle)!
Just the sheer mathematics of Samuel’s prophesy are staggering. He named a dozen or so participants,
including what they would do and say. He
named animals, food, musical instruments, and places where all this would
happen. That it would all follow that
script allows for only two possibilities – Samuel had set it up as an intricate
ruse to convince Saul, or it was truly a miraculous vision giving insight into what
would happen that day. And, by the way,
if you’re tempted towards that ruse thing – what do you do with the documented reality
that later Saul actually became king in a land that had never had one before? The astounding odds stack up to the moon on
that one! Faith with solid proof to back
it up is the first lesson. The second
lesson I take away is that the mundane or even distasteful things we all do,
like hunting for donkeys when we’d rather be fishing or playing third base for
the Yankees, are not too far off God’s beaten path.
I have learned to look for
God in the most everyday kind of places.
One of the places God wanted to use me was about thirty years ago at a
wedding for Bridezilla. They were
strangers to me, not church members. She
and her fiancé were only marginally acquainted with matters of faith. They had seen our chapel and it was the
perfect setting. I require six sessions
of pre-marital counselling, and she couldn’t understand why, but dutifully
showed up and grunted through the times.
The wedding went off well, but the road to get there was rocky and less
than gracious. I got the distinct
feeling when they drove away that day after the reception that she was so glad
to see me in the rearview mirror, I’d never see them again.
Fast forward 10 years – I had
moved 60 miles away and was not expecting any calls that Sunday before
church. When I picked up the phone it was
Bridezilla: hello, pastor Brownworth?
She sounded so different, but my
suspicions were accurate – she had never wanted to see my face again. She told me that those times in counselling when
I said you can’t have a Christian home without two Christians humbly submitted
to God, and serving Him, had annoyed her back before the wedding, and stuck in
her craw…but eventually found its way into her heart. She and her husband were being baptized that
day, and she wanted to say thank you for being a
faithful pastor.
For You Today
Are
you hunting donkeys…or waiting on God?
You
chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!
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