On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. — Esther 6:1
Have you ever experienced God in something so ordinary it simply amazed you? Not long ago I was driving down a road I had traveled before when my GPS redirected me. It told me to take a turn I was not expecting and head in a direction I was not familiar with. I was not sure about it. The original route made more sense to me. But I followed the instruction anyway.
And soon I was seeing things I had never seen before. Roads I had never traveled. Scenery I would have driven past a hundred times without knowing it was there. The detour I did not choose led me somewhere the route I preferred never would have taken me.
It was ordinary. A GPS notification. A turn I did not plan. And yet it opened something up that the familiar path had kept hidden. God works like that more often than we realize.
Of all the moments in the book of Esther, Esther 6:1 may be the most quietly extraordinary verse in the entire story. The king could not sleep. That is it. No angel descended. No burning bush appeared. No voice spoke from heaven. The most powerful man in the known world simply lay awake one night and called for the royal records to be read to him, the ancient equivalent of finding something dull enough to help him drift off.
And in the reading of those records, a forgotten moment surfaced at exactly the right time. Mordecai’s act of loyalty in saving the king’s life years earlier had never been rewarded. The king had not known. And now, on this specific night, at this specific hour, the record was read aloud at the precise moment when its contents would change the entire trajectory of the story.
Everything that follows- Haman’s humiliation, Mordecai’s honor, the turning of the tide against everything Haman had built- hinges on a sleepless night. On one of the most ordinary human experiences imaginable. The king could not sleep. And God used it to move the whole story forward.
This is what divine providence looks like most of the time. Not a parting sea. Not a pillar of fire. A sleepless night. A GPS reroute. A conversation that came up unexpectedly. A book that fell off the shelf at the right moment. A delay that felt like an inconvenience but positioned you somewhere you needed to be.
God does not always work through the spectacular. In fact, He rarely does. Most of the time He works through the ordinary, through the unremarkable moments that we would never think to attribute to Him if we were not paying attention.
The believer who is only looking for God in the dramatic moments will miss Him in the ordinary ones. And the ordinary ones are where He does most of His work.
The king could not sleep. He did not know why. He did not know what God was setting in motion through his insomnia. He simply called for the records and listened.
Pay attention to the ordinary moments in your own story. The unexpected turn. The conversation you did not plan. The delay that frustrated you. The night you could not sleep.
God may be using the most unremarkable moment of your day to move something in your life that nothing else could have moved. God does not need the spectacular to change your story. He just needs one ordinary moment and your willingness to follow where it leads.
Sometimes the most meaningful encouragement comes from hearing how God is meeting people in ordinary moments.
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About Another Well Ministries
Another Well Ministries exists to help people slow down, listen deeply, and encounter God in the ordinary places of life. Through devotionals, reflections, and spiritual resources, we seek to create space for faith to be formed with honesty, grace, and hope.
To learn more about the heart of the ministry or explore additional resources, visit anotherwell.org.
