Chasing Donkeys

I got up and walked out to my front porch a few years ago, as was my morning habit to greet the day and say a silent prayer of thankfulness. This morning, however, the earth around me was cloaked in a dense fog that seemed to have crept in overnight and was just waiting for the sun’s rays to disperse it. I looked over to my left into the large open field next to my house and spotted something strange. There, in the distance, I saw what almost looked like bunny ears sticking out just above the cloud of fog. But my mind must be playing tricks on me because these ears were too high off the ground, and I know we don’t have kangaroos anywhere near where I live. Then I saw the ear move a little closer, and as I squinted my eyes to see what was moving around, I could make out two donkeys chomping down on the early morning dewy grass. What made this scene even more peculiar was that everything was so quiet.

Suddenly, the donkeys started moving towards me, and I was paralyzed in fear for a split second. You see, I have this incomprehensible fear of large animals! It is totally ridiculous, and I don’t know where it comes from, but believe it or not, I’m even terrified of cows. Their mere size is what bothers me the most, I guess. When I finally snapped out of my fear-induced catatonic split-second state, I ran inside the house to wake my daughter up to come and help with whatever was about to take place. I had an inkling of an idea that these two donkeys would give us a little early morning adventure before the day started. Once I got her up, we ran outside, grabbing the cell phone before heading out the door because I had a slight suspicion I knew who these donkeys belonged to, and thankfully, I had that neighbor’s phone number.

After the mad dash out the door in my flip-flops and pj’s, we came to the front porch again to see the donkeys slowly prancing past us toward the gate leading to the paved road. I knew we had to stop them before they got out, but the lead in my feet would not make me move fast enough, and I was trying to get a hold of the neighbor on the phone, so in my defense, my concentration was a little divided at that point. My daughter started running after them, but as it so happened, as soon as she started picking up speed, the animals also picked up the pace and started running in their flight reaction to her movement.

Here we are in our pajamas, I in my flip-flops and my daughter barefoot, chasing the donkeys down the road to see if we can get ahead of them before they reach the main highway and potentially get hit by the semi trucks that frequently travel the road early in the morning for deliveries. Praise Jesus because I could reach the neighbor whose donkeys they were, and he told me he was on his way. You know, in those moments where you find yourself scared of the outcome of a particular situation, it always feels as though the help you want or need just can’t get there fast enough. Well, I was feeling it. I kept praying, “Lord, let them come quickly before these donkeys get hurt.”

Finally, about three hundred yards from the main highway, the neighbor rushed past us in his beat-up red farm truck and raced to block the donkeys off. As soon as he got them turned around, he guided them back down the road toward his house and the safety of their pin, where they had escaped from. I was standing on the side of the road, pouring sweat, and lost one of my shoes along the way as my neighbor slowly drove past with a big ole smile on his face, thanking us for all our help. We walked back to our house and chattered like little birds about the events as we got ready for school and work.

Later that morning, however, I couldn’t help but wonder why this specific incident would have happened the way it did on this particular day and what the lesson would be from it. As I started my cleaning job, I selected a random sermon to listen to while I worked, as was my custom. As the pastor briefly introduced the text they would read, my eyebrows lifted so high that they might have fallen off if they weren’t attached. The pastor was reading the story of Saul in 1 Samuel 9 and 10. If I remember correctly, the sermon’s title was “From Donkeys to Destiny!” I could hardly believe it! God had given me a life-size biblical illustration that morning! I was utterly awestruck by the privilege of receiving such an enormous gift from my Heavenly Father.

In this story about Saul, his dad loses his donkeys and asks Saul to look for them. Saul travels through the “mountains of Ephraim and the land of Shalisha, but he and the servant could not find the donkeys. They went into the land of Shaalim, but the donkeys were not there. They went through the land of Benjamin, but they still did not find them” (1 Samuel 9:4–5). Eventually, just as Saul was about to give up the search because they had traveled so far and thought that his dad would start worrying more about him instead of the donkeys, the servant suggested they go and see the prophet, Samuel. The servant suggested that the prophet or seer, as they were called in those days, could give them some insight into where to look for the donkeys. Saul agrees, and they proceed to find Samuel. In the meantime, God had spoken to Samuel and told him that Saul was on his way and that he should anoint him to be the leader of Israel.

Can you imagine! Something as simple as looking for a lost item leads to you becoming a person of influence. You see, God uses these tasks that we often see as menial and insignificant to lead us down a path that would ultimately bring us to a place where we can have some influence in other’s lives. We often think that certain things are below us and how wrong we are when we look at the life of Jesus because He came to serve, not because He wanted anything, but because He loved. I learned that day that we should do every task with equal dedication because God will never exempt us from the mundane; it is part of His character-building plan for us. In these small services that we perform for others and God, we grow to become more and more like Christ. Jesus Himself said, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much…” (Luke 16:10). If we allow God to use us and abide by Him in the mundane, menial, and insignificant tasks He gives us, He will lead us to a place where He can use us to be people of significance for others.

When I was a small child, I stayed with an elderly couple for a few hours each day after school until my parents could come and pick me up, and I will never forget what Mrs. Olga taught me; she said, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as if working for the Lord, and not for human masters” (Colossians 3:23). In my mind’s eye, I always imagined that if I was asked to make my bed, I should do it as if I was making it for Jesus to come sleep on. If I was asked to wash the dishes, I should wash them so that Jesus could come and eat from those plates. If I was asked to help a friend move, I should do it as if Jesus was moving into that house. How much more would you do for Jesus if you placed Him at the center of everything you do?