Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

We've made it 100 days. Congratulations. I hope you're doing something to celebrate this

milestone. All right, let's dive into today's reading.

Have you ever heard of a Rube Goldberg machine?

Let me describe one and see if this rings a bell.

Imagine dominoes falling over row by row until they hit a golf ball,

knocking it into a paper cup, which is attached to a pulley system

that drops the cup down and tips it over and spills the golf ball,

and you get the picture.

All the things in a Rube Goldberg machine have to line up perfectly to accomplish each detail so that the next detail connects and the end goes off as planned. It's very complicated. And that's

why God is the best at Rube Goldberg machines. We see that in today's reading. Today, God lets Samuel know that he's the one

in charge of appointing Israel's first king, and he gives him a heads up that the man he has in mind

is on his way to meet him. God arranged the circumstances of their meeting perfectly. It involves

getting some donkeys lost, putting an idea in the servant's head and a silver coin in his pocket,

stationing some girls at the well at what was probably an unusual time of day to go to the well,

and having it all line up not only with the arrival of Samuel back in town, but also with

the feast and the timing God gave Samuel for when the new king would arrive. Saul is a

Benjaminite, the tribe that was almost wiped out

completely not long ago. Remember how only 600 men survived? And those survivors weren't viewed too

highly among Israel because they caused Israel's first civil war. So apart from his appearance,

Saul is an unlikely candidate to be king of Israel. But his appearance is the first thing noted about him in

scripture. As for his height, Jewish historians say the average Israelite male in those days was

...