Change and Donkeys
As much as I’d like to ramble about something on writing that ends up being lightly educational as well (but interesting), nothing is really coming to my mind in that way. I think it’s because I’m not in school anymore. I still haven’t fully come to terms with it. Once I get a full-time job, I’ll immerse myself into a group of completely different people than I’ve been with the past four years, and I will never be part of that old group again. And new people will come in, and a lot will change, and people will change, but I will be gone.
At the same time, I can pursue any interest I want to now! I can open four businesses if I wanted to! I can become a freelancer, an artist, and author, and who knows what else! I can pull out weeds and unwanted plants from my decrepit backyard and start putting it back into shape. Ultimately, I know that God is in control, not to a hyper-Calvinist extent of “everyone is a robot” or in a feel-good sense of “This is my mantra, man!” but in the understanding that I am a character in the story God is creating, whom He cares about too.
In reading 1 Samuel, one can see (but not necessarily understand) how God works in our lives. I came across a most comforting verse recently; it was when the prophet Samuel first met the future king Saul (1 Samuel 10:20): “As for your donkeys which were lost three days ago, do not set your mind on them, for they have been found.”
A silly verse to single out as special, perhaps, but as it is in the context of God orchestrating the kingship of Saul over Israel (since Israel demanded a king in their rejection of God as their king), I found that verse very kind, with no grief to it. God could have had Samuel say, “Forget about the donkeys, cause they’re gone forever.” But no, they had been found and restored to his father’s house.
Someday my college days will be in the long, long, long-ago past, and right now I have no idea where I’m going or where I am (as sunny and nice as it is here), but I can trust God in any point in time, and I hope to trust Him more.