Year 2 Day 252

Year 2 Day 252 


Pray (ACts)


Read - 1 Samuel 9:1-14


Message - Alan Burke 


This weeks has been quite ordinary, so far that is. It may have been that way for me but what about you? You could have faced much that is anything but ordinary, the reality is though that for most of us, most of our weeks are filled with the pretty normal, run of the mill stuff. We may even be able to write a whole week schedule within nothing out of the ordinary happening at all, for we generally know what our days are going look like and there are few surprises. Here as we are introduced to Saul there is a sense you could say that it was just another day on the farm, nothing really out of the ordinary. 


As the passage starts off and we are told is who Saul is, it seems totally unrelated to what happened before other than Saul’s name literally means ‘asked for’ and the people had asked for, or rather demanded a king. Then we are told the donkeys belonging to Saul’s dad and wondered, so he has to go look for them. Loosing a few donkey’s might not sound like a big deal to us, but there were no horses around in Israel at that time and definitely no John Deers or New Hollands or any other machines, the donkeys were it. Even the poorest families would have had at least one.


All in all this was just another day on the farm except he wasn’t on the farm he was out looking for the donkey’s. Finally Saul faces up that the done sys are gone and his dad will be more worried about him (v5). We might be excused for wondering where this story is going, why on earth are we being told about the donkeys, but as we continue, as the servant of Saul tell him to go see the man of God we begin to see that there is more going on. Saul was looking for the lost donkeys but God was using what seemed like ordinary events to bring Saul to the place where he wanted him.


Finally Saul ends up going to see the man of God, arriving just at the time a religious sacrifice to the LORD was about to be observed (11) and at that time, the same time as Saul arrived the prophet Samuel had just arrived to bless the sacrifice (v14). An ordinary occurrence had led Saul to this place and at just the right time, just as Samuel was at that very place at going to offer a sacrifice. God was using the ordinary things of Saul’s life to bring him to Himself, it’s more than a remarkable coincidence rather it is a God-incidence, God in his providence was working together what seems like the ordinary occurrences in the life of Saul. 


Providence, God’s most holy, (Ps. 145:17) wise, (Ps. 104:24, Isa. 28:29) and powerful preserving, (Heb. 1:3) and governing all his creatures, and all their actions. (Ps. 103:19, Matt. 10:29–31). In the midst of hardships, trials, joys, celebrations and everything in-between the Lord is at work. My week has been quite ordinary so far anyway, my donkeys haven’t escaped for thankfully I don’t have donkeys, but the Lord uses the pretty normal, run of the mill stuff in our lives according to His purposes, for His glory and in His providence. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing

WSC
Q18 Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?
The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam’ s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called Original Sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. (Rom. 5:12,19, Rom. 5:10–20,
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