A Divine Donkey Chase

By John Stallings


Have you ever noticed that many of the great doors of our lives swing on very small hinges?

 Another way to say it would be; the really life changing turns we make seldom manifest themselves as big events, but rather they often go almost unnoticed until we look back on them. Then in retrospect we see that had not that small thing happened or that insignificant turn been taken, our life stories would be entirely different.


In 1 Samuel chapter 9 &10 there’s a story about a young man named Saul; the Saul who would later become the King of Israel. In this story his father’s donkey’s have escaped and are lost and young Saul has the task of finding them. As he journeys, his path crosses with the Prophet Samuel. Soon it becomes obvious that Saul is being drawn by God into a divine scenario. What at first seems like a mundane donkey chase, a rather demeaning job, in reality was a meeting with his destiny, to be anointed Israel’s leader.

Many people seem to think that the fall of Saul many years later, was orchestrated by God to take Saul down and exalt David. Nothing could be further from the truth. Samuel told Saul that God would have established his house forever. God hand picked Saul for his ascendancy to the throne. David was strictly a second stringer, whom God used when his first pick failed. God always has a replacement when one of his servants fails, just as a manager of a baseball team will always have pitchers warming up in case the man on the mound gets wobbly. He wants to keep that man in the game but if for some reasons he’s failing, the manager will of necessity replace him. Any ministry would be wise to periodically hear the symbolic swoosh of the ball being thrown & caught in the bull pen to remind him or her that God will never be without witnesses in any generation & no individual is indispensable. This was the ultimate story of Saul.

But in this donkey chasing story of Saul’s beginnings, we see him playing out this providential scenario. It’s revealed to Saul later that all of his donkeys have been recovered for him and are in a corral waiting. He had been gloriously set up by God.

Many times in my life I have experienced this same thing. I thought I was chasing donkeys. What was happening in my life at the time was so boring and tedious; I felt I was just killing time preaching in some small backwater town. Later I would find that it was there that a connection would be made that would change the course of my life.

Many times, when we think we’re chasing donkey’s, heavenly satellites are humming & swinging into place as divine connections are being made on our behalf in another world. God is positioning us for great things to happen.

I remember in 1961 when we were just starting in the ministry my wife and I were in California and had just closed the last revival we had scheduled. As young aspiring evangelist’s we had gone west with just a few weeks booked knowing if nothing else opened up all we could do was go back home to Florida. Our dream however was to stay in California for an extended time.

The last service we had there a lady came up to me at the end and put a business card in my hand. She explained that it was her son’s card that pastored a small church in Northern California. He had talked to her the night before and when she mentioned us he told her to invite us to his church later that week and we could sing at a ministers meeting being held there. It wasn’t a booking that would pay but an opportunity to meet some ministers. I thanked her for the kind thought and asked her if she’d mind calling her son and telling him we wouldn’t promise to be there but would be happy to minister in song if we decided to come. That’s the way we left it.

After the service we went to our motel, knowing we’d probably be leaving for home the next day. We got out our map and searched for the little town the lady had spoken about and found it to be several hundred miles north. After much prayer, consideration and having slept on it that night, we awoke the next morning, still unsure in our spirits if we should drive all that way to be in that one small service. There was absolutely no guarantee of getting bookings out of it; it was a raw step of faith. After agonizing about it for awhile, the decision was made to go. We packed the car and headed for Northern California.

We had made it a rule to keep two hundred dollars in traveler’s checks for the trip back to Florida if nothing else opened up. We could always stay busy back  east but California was our dream. The ministers meeting was to be held on Wednesday of that week so we called friends of ours where we’d stayed in a previous meeting. They were very gracious to allow us to come by and spend Monday night with them. That meant we still had Tuesday night to spend somewhere for the completion of the trip. I’m sure had we mentioned it to the friends we stayed with that night they would have been happy to have us stay one more night. However, not wanting to impose, and also being a little proud, we left the next morning never telling them anything more.

We drove into Northern California the next day. When it began to get a little late we started discussing where we should spend the night. We still had the two hundred dollars but  didn't want to spend it, figuring we’d need it for the trip back to Florida. As the sun started to set, we looked out the car window at the rugged mountainous area we were in and felt it beginning to get cooler. You can get in the wilderness quick in Northern California.

We passed a park area where people stopped over with trailers and tents to camp for the night and decided to stop and ask if we could sleep there overnight. The owner said it would be O.K so we pulled in and parked in one of the camping spots. I don’t know what the man thought when he never saw us put up a tent but nothing was said so we proceeded to do we felt we had to do, sleep in the car.

The back seat was filled with clothes, a guitar, an accordion, a big electric amplifier, and other baggage. Did I mention we were driving a Renault? They are small French cars known for gas mileage & little else. I let my wife have the front seat which consisted of two bucket seats, because the car had a stick shift on the floor. How she slept that way I’ll never know. However, I had my own set of problems; problems which I faced outside under the stars, on the ground. We had a small quilt with us and I made a makeshift tent with a piece of tarpaulin we had brought to use on a top carrier we had left with friends in Shreveport Louisiana because the car would only go 45 miles an hour with the top carrier on it.

After one of the worst nights sleep ever recorded by man, we awoke the next morning with bodies aching from the strained sleeping conditions. We used the camps shower facilities to get cleaned up and dress. I walked to a little store nearby, bought some cereal and milk which we ate  right out of the boxes. It was delicious. It’s surprising what you can do when you have to.


When we got dressed up and left that camp, you would have thought we just stepped out of an expensive motel. We continued our slow drive north, not wanting to arrive too soon & have time on our hands. We arrived in the little town about two hours before the service was to start. We found the church without much trouble but our hearts sank when we drove up to the front of it. The church was tiny and looked quite old, though it was neat and well kept.

There were a few cars in the parking lot and we sat for a time and watched people walk in. We had covered almost half the state of California to get there. We sat in silence for a while, each of us wondering what the other was thinking. Finally I spoke up and asked, “Do you feel like going in there?” We discussed it and strangely, the truth that emerged was that neither of us wanted to go into the church. It was so odd. We had come all that way and now we didn't want to go in to the meeting.

We kept talking, considering several things: even if we did meet preachers and book meetings, odds were no one would want to start services right away and we needed something now. Finally about ten minutes before the service we made our decision to go in. We got our musical instruments out; accordion guitar and amplifier, and walked up the steps and into the church.

The Pastor met us at the door and was extremely warm and personable. He took us up to the front of the church and introduced us to a few Pastors who had arrived early. I remember sitting on the front seat as the service started still wondering if we’d done the right thing by making that journey. What if we sang and the Pastors didn't like us? What if we got through and no one came up to say we’re glad you came? What if we had to leave with a feeling of rejection and have what had so far been a wonderful California experience spoiled?

Those things had happen to us in the past. If Pastors don’t want you, that’s just reality, you need not whine about it. Finally we were introduced and got up to sing two songs. We felt an average acceptance of our singing but nothing exceptional. After we sat down, the Pastor who was in charge, not the local Pastor who had met us at the door, got up to speak. The first thing he said was “Folks we need to really welcome this young couple tonight and you Pastors who’d like to book them for services can just get in line behind me”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. We sat through the service, heard a very moving message and at the end of the service they asked us to come back and sing another song. The shock of my life came as we started to leave the platform. Every preacher in the place was lined up to shake our hands and ask about booking us for revivals. In those days, revivals went for two and three weeks so we were booked for almost a year on the spot.

The Pastor of the church we were in told us he’d like to start a meeting the very next Sunday, and then the big surprise. His church had an evangelists apartment and we could go there immediately, unpack and stay as long as we wanted to. When we left that service we were practically jumping up and down with joy. After having a nice meal that the ladies of the church had prepared for the Ministers, we unpacked our clothes in the apartment in the church that would be home for us as long as we needed it. The journey of faith had been a success.

That one service opened up the whole west coast for us and we stayed in California for nearly a year. The next year, we went back to California and stayed the whole year. Think about it, one service, a service that we almost missed, gave our ministry a jump start that set the stage for more that a decade of National Evangelistic Ministry. And to think we almost missed it because what we envisioned looked so small and insignificant. It looked as if we were “Chasing Donkey’s.” I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we’d missed that opportunity. We might have gone back home, discouraged and who knows how Satan would have used it against us?

Have you ever been on a donkey chase? Remember, God often works in the small things. God’s word warns of despising the day of small things. The feeling of chasing donkeys has happened over and over in my life. One of the big lessons of life is that because we never know which opportunity is going to blossom into a life changing experience, it behooves us to always do our best even in the seemingly small moments of life.

The chorus of “Learning to lean” only has 24 words in it; 24 very simple words. So simple in fact that for that reason it almost never saw the light of day. But those simple 24 words have blessed many millions of lives. The song has been mightily used even though a child could probably have written it.

Don’t let the seemingly insignificant things in your life slip through your fingers, for it’s the weak things that God has chosen to confound the mighty. As with young Saul, you too may think you’re chasing donkeys. Everything that’s happening to you perhaps seems so mundane. Remember God uses the foolish things to confound the wise.

But in truth God is moving you toward your destiny.

Blessings,

John