Saul and Samuel Brought Together by the Lord

One of the things that is neat about 1 Samuel 9 is that it shows how the Lord brought Saul to Samuel to be made king.

Saul goes on this journey because some of their donkeys are missing and his dad wanted him to go look for them.  The timing of the loss of those donkeys shows it was the Lord behind it.

There’s another circumstance that indicates that the Lord has a hand in bring them together.  See if you can find it in v6 and v12:

6 And he said unto him, Behold now, there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honourable man; all that he saith cometh surely to pass: now let us go thither; peradventure he can shew us our way that we should go….

12 And they answered them, and said, He is; behold, he is before you: make haste now, for he came to day to the city; for there is a sacrifice of the people to day in the high place:

In v6 the servant seems to think that Samuel is permanently at that city, but the girls at the city show that Samuel is not permanently there, but that he just got there that day.  Perfect timing.  The Lord brought both Saul and Samuel on converging paths to meet.

Yet another circumstance is that Saul has this servant with him who gives him the direction he needs, and Saul also runs into people who help him on his way with good directions.

How often does the Lord use the instrumentality of other mortals – strangers or servants or friends or employees or family or leaders -- to give us little bits of guidance to get us to the place He wants us to be?  Probably more often than we realize.

The other thing we can notice is that Saul and Samuel’s paths converged as they went about doing their best to do their duties.   Saul was serving his family looking for lost animals.  Samuel was serving the Lord by overseeing sacrificial worship at various cities.   This teaches me that if I am dependable about doing my duties, then the Lord will bring me to the people I need to meet by giving me duties that put me on that path.  So in a sense, doing our duties allows the Lord guide us to where we need to be.