The Providence of God

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In the book of First Samuel, when we’re first introduced to Saul, whom the Lord had chosen to become Israel’s first king, we find a remarkable instance of God’s providence.

Saul was the son of a wealthy man named Kish. As it happened, Kish’s donkeys wandered off, and he sent his son to go find them. After three days of searching without success, Saul determined to return home, lest his father cease to be worried about the donkeys and begin to worry about his son. But Saul’s servant advised that since they were so near to Ramah, the city of the prophet Samuel, they ought to consult him to see if he could divine the location of the missing donkeys.
 
This is where the curtain is pulled back for just a moment and we’re allowed a glimpse of the secret working of God. The day before Saul arrived in Ramah, the Lord had said to Samuel, “Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel” (9:16).

Did you catch it? It's not, “A man will happen to show up...” but “I will send him to you.” This shows that none of the things leading up to their meeting happened by chance: not the fact that the donkey’s wandered off; that Kish had Saul, rather than one of his other sons or his servants, go look for them; that Saul concluded his search near Ramah; or that his servant suggested they inquire of Samuel. None of these things was a merely fortuitous circumstance of daily life. The events unfolded according to God’s sovereign will and purpose. It was the Lord himself who led Saul to Samuel’s doorstep. Although Saul was completely unaware of it at the time, every twist and turn of his journey, every decision he made to go here and not there—to take this path and not that one—was directed by God’s overruling providence, thus proving what Solomon would later affirm:

The heart of man plans his way,
        but the Lord directs his steps (Prov. 16:9)

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