Today’s Reading: 1 Samuel 15, 16 & 17

God’s hand is always at work. Very often, however, we are unable to see it in our own lives in the present moment. It is only upon reflection that we recognize God’s constant guiding presence in every situation. Likewise, though we know he is working his plan, we rarely get to actually see the pieces of the puzzle coming together and falling into place.

Today’s reading is one of those rare exceptions. In these three chapters of the book of 1 Samuel, we see, through a series of otherwise unrelated incidents, God orchestrating the end of one king’s reign and the beginning of another. In just three chapters, we see God reject Saul as king, anoint David as future king, then (this is where it gets interesting) cause David and Saul’s paths to cross and David to become one of Saul’s attendants and, ultimately, for David to step in and solve Saul’s biggest problem (pun intended) – a beast of a man named Goliath.

This is one of those “peeling back the curtain” moments where we can actually see God at work. We see God, through Samuel, choosing David, rather than his older brothers. We see that David’s time spent in Saul’s service was not merely a coincidence. We also see that Saul, who was prone to collect strong warriors, was allowed by God to witness David’s prowess first-hand. All of this, it seems was part of God’s plan to get David “on the inside”. And though Saul was somewhat jealous of David, we’ll see in future chapters that God’s plan worked amazingly well.

In fact, that’s how it works with God. He uses the everyday events of our lives for his purposes. Sometimes, those events are mundane things like the job we have or the friends we make. Other times, those events are the momentous ones in our life that we’ll never forget (you know, like killing a nine and a half foot tall warrior with a rock and a sling.)

The thing is, we don’t usually get any insight into which moments are “God-moments” and which ones aren’t. That’s why it’s important to seek God in our daily lives. I mean, what if David had never taken up music as a kid? Would he have had the opportunities he did? What if Saul had not been so desperate to defeat the Philistines? Would he have ever put his country’s fate in the hands of an untrained boy?

For David, everything in his life had been leading up to this moment and no part of his life – not being a shepherd or a musician or an outspoken teenager – carried any marks of being God-ordained. And yet, in the moment when all the pieces came together, David made a bold statement that charted the course for his future. Who knows what might happen to you today that will chart the course for yours!