Running in Circles
Tuesday (September 30)
Running in Circles
1 Samuel 9:15-16
Now the day before Saul came, the LORD had revealed to Samuel: “Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines.”
The sequence of events that must take place precisely in order for the LORD’s prophecy to come true is immeasurable. The implications of such exact knowledge of Saul’s arrival and the corresponding power to ensure that nothing prohibits it creates such an overwhelming and unsolvable riddle to our finite minds that we come out seeming like nothing more than puppets on a string. On the one hand, its clear that we have will power, and we make millions of little choices every day, from whether to take a cold morning shower or a hot one, or whether to eat eggs or a bagel for breakfast, to which shirt to wear, to which road to take to work, to which song or sermon or podcast to listen to on the drive, and others just like these. Our entire lives are an exquisite web of choices and consequences, interweaving constantly with the choices of others, yet, somehow, God’s will upholds all these movements of our hands and feet to get us where He wants us to be.
Had Saul awakened an hour early or an hour later on this morning, or had he chosen to stop for lunch at the farmer’s market, or had he taken any other path than the one road that will get him to Samuel’s place, or had he followed a few leads from possible donkey witnesses that set them back, or had he stopped one too many times at the pitstop, then he would’ve missed the moment God foreswore to Samuel. But marvel of marvels! Every little choice Saul and his friend make of their own will leads them to fulfill God’s word down to the very letter.
Friend, tomorrows are yesterdays to the LORD. All your starting lines are finish lines in His unfathomable wisdom. So, as you chase after donkeys and ministries and children and piles of laundry and workloads that always seem two steps ahead, even when you feel like you’re running in circles, remember: you’re running circles in the palm of His good hand.