One night, a king could not sleep; he had no nightmare, there were no plagues, no angel appeared, yet his insomnia became the very instrument through which an entire nation would be preserved. In his state of unrest, he decided to get busy with some king duties and requested that the chronicles be read before him.

Mordecai's forgotten act of patriotism and heroism was discovered, and Haman arrived at precisely the wrong moment for himself and the right moment for Mordecai. We know the rest of the story in Esther 6:1–10. What appeared to be a collection of ordinary events was, in reality, providence unfolding.

If a miracle is God visibly interrupting the natural order, providence is God quietly governing it. God does not always need to suspend natural processes to accomplish a supernatural purpose. Sometimes, He simply arranges and rearranges them.

It honestly fascinates me how, 42 generations and approximately 2000 years apart, Joseph—the descendant of Abraham is espoused to one Mary, the virgin Isaiah prophesied about in Isaiah 7:14 (Matthew 1:1-17). God is not only sovereign, with His supreme authority, power, and right to rule. He is also Providential—actively working through His creation and circumstances to accomplish His purposes. Jesus affirms this: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17).

Consider how we make plans, deliberate our choices, choose routes, accept invitations, meet people, change locations, and make decisions daily, yet above all these human variables exists the sovereign intelligence of God, capable of ordering steps without violating the human will, causing seemingly unrelated events to converge toward a definite purpose.

This, I believe, is one of the most beautiful dimensions of divine guidance: God is not only able to speak within us; He is also able to arrange things around us.

The life of Joseph perhaps presents one of Scripture's clearest pictures of this reality. Joseph received dreams concerning his future, but the fulfilment of those dreams came largely through providence. His brothers hated him. They threw him into a pit. A company of Ishmaelites happened to be travelling towards Egypt. Joseph was sold to Potiphar, falsely accused, imprisoned, introduced to Pharaoh's officers, forgotten for a season, and eventually remembered at precisely the moment Pharaoh needed someone capable of interpreting his dreams.

Viewed individually, many of those events would hardly have looked like divine guidance. Some looked like injustice. Others looked like delay. Circumstances which appeared to move Joseph farther away than closer to what God had shown him.

Yet, at the end of the story, Joseph could look backwards and perceive an intelligence greater than the intentions of the people involved: “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good…” (Genesis 50:20).

Notice the language carefully: providence does not require us to call evil good; rather, it reveals God's ability to overrule evil without becoming its author. Human beings acted according to their own intentions, yet God, in His sovereignty, wove even their actions into a larger redemptive purpose.

Providence is often easier to recognise retrospectively than prospectively. I remember how deeply I wanted to attend the University of Ilorin. The full story is one for another day, but it was not because I failed JAMB, had to resit the examination, or lacked the required score for admission. But God, in His providence, worked behind the scenes, and I found myself in Federal University Oye-Ekiti, which would become the foundation and discovery of these things I write today.

Ruth's story carries the same subtlety. After returning to Bethlehem with Naomi, Ruth went out to glean in the fields. Scripture says: “And her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz…” (Ruth 2:3). Her hap! I believe from Ruth's perspective, perhaps it appeared accidental. She simply entered a field. Yet that field belonged to Boaz, the man who would eventually become her kinsman-redeemer and through whose lineage David and ultimately Christ according to the flesh would come. What looked like chance from a human perspective was providence from above.

This does not mean that every coincidence or occurrence should immediately be interpreted as a divine providence. Here again, balance becomes necessary. There is a dangerous tendency to turn superstition into providence —to read spiritual meaning into every minor occurrence and construct instruction from circumstances alone. One thing is sure: our lives are too precious to God to be left to coincidence.

Continued…