A Call to New Perspective

I love the way God uses circumstances to get our attention.  Like the story of Saul, an ordinary guy, undertaking what appears to be a normal task his Father asked him to do in 1 Samuel 9-10.  It would seem that Saul didn’t really know God when he embarked on this journey, so God uses lost donkeys to draw him into a life changing encounter.  

After 3 days of no success, Saul was prepared to give up and return home. But God’s purpose was not for Saul to find his donkeys, but rather new perspective.

Saul meets Samuel, and what follows is a few unexpected events of being invited to a fancy dinner, being honoured and spending the night with a prophet on his roof before being anointed with oil and declared Commander of God’s people! The strangeness continues with a number of unique prophetic actions/events that Saul undertakes which leads Saul to eventually prophesying with a bunch of prophets.  It all started with Saul just looking for donkeys!

In the same way, many of us were going about our business as normal in the first few months of this year. But then came a significant turn of events.  Corona Virus outbreak and then Lock Down for 3 weeks which eventually led to 3 months of hard lock down (in South Africa). For most of us, this was rather abrupt or a sudden change, something we had no idea was coming or maybe even properly prepared for. Like Saul, who was just looking for a few donkeys, but walked away as the anointed King.

But note this significant change that happens to Saul in the middle of all the craziness he experiences: 1 Samuel 10:9 “ So it was, when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, that God gave him another heart”. What does it mean to get another heart?  Well, I think it means new desires, attitudes, new purpose or focus.  In short, I think God changed Saul by giving him a new perspective for his life.  The bible definitely does not give clear indication, but one can roughly ascertain that Saul’s journey from an ordinary man to anointed king took a few weeks.

 So, here we are, in the early days of lock down. For us it’s unique, unexpected and also out of the ordinary. I believe God has unique encounters for each of us in this time, but one thing I believe, He desires for us to leave our lock down time, CHANGED.  We should not want to just go on exactly like before. I believe God want’s to transform our lives like He did with Saul.

 So may we actively pray that God will also change our heart by giving us new perspective, new attitudes, desires and focus in this time of lock down. That when we leave our homes again and undertake our normal routines, we may be “crowned” with new anointing (Corona means “Crown”) because our perspectives have been changed through God’s Spirit teaching, encountering and changing us.  Because God is in the business of changing our hearts by any means, if we are open and willing.

Ezek 36:26-29

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”