Knowing God’s providence doesn’t guarantee easy sleep. It isn’t Nyquil. We may go to bed every night feeling like the Hamans of the world will still win. Trusting in God’s providence isn’t magic. It’s a daily habit of remembering the gospel. The gospel is the greatest evidence of God’s providence. God plans, accomplishes and applies our salvation (Eph 1:3-14). God’s good providence was at work before we were even born.

My anxieties get excited when I go to bed. The sound of my head hitting the pillow is their alarm to wake up and send my mind spiralling about things I can’t control.
I tell myself, “Trust the Lord and go to sleep.” That’s easy to believe when I can pinpoint clear signs of God’s presence. But can God be trusted when life is chaos? When God seems absent how can I trust him and rest?
The Bible leads us to meditate on God’s providence so that we will not freak out when life is chaos.
Providence describes the purpose of God in history. John Piper’s definition is a good one: Providence is God’s purposeful sovereignty. The Bible shows us that God governs all things, and his purpose is his glory and the good of his people (Gen 50:20 & Rom 8:28-30). To contemplate God’s providence, we may linger in Romans 8, considering the scope and certainty of God’s purposes. Or maybe we sit with Psalm 23, meditating on his goodness in leading us along a hard path. But Esther 6 is a great passage for contemplating God’s providence when God seems invisible.
The Book of Esther never mentions God by name. Esther lived in the time of exile when Israel was under Persian rule under King Ahasuerus. Haman, the king’s right-hand man, gets royal permission to annihilate the Israelites. God seems absent and his people seem destined for a swift and sudden end.
In many ways, Esther resonates with our lives today. Day after day we go through the motions, and unless we are intentional, God is not referenced. On top of that, the gospel doesn’t seem to make any progress. Society feels under the control of godless people, who call good evil and praise evil as if it were good. It’s not hard to assume God is absent and his purpose has failed.
Esther 6 gives us hope by reminding us that God is never absent, and never on his heels. Unknown to the characters in the story, God works for Esther and his people. Esther 6 reveals the invisible hand of God, helping us trust his unseen providence.
Coincidence or Providence?
Many so-called coincidences happen in Esther 6. Ahasuerus happens to have a sleepless night. He happens to ask for the book of memorable deeds. The scribes happen to read from an obscure place about an event five years ago. It just so happens that Mordecai never received a gift for saving the king. Haman happens to be in the court at the time, so he has to carry out the command to honour Mordecai, his sworn enemy. After plotting to destroy Mordecai, Haman proclaims Mordecai’s honour throughout the city. This all takes place the night before Esther pleads with the king to rescue Mordecai’s people from Haman’s horrible, decreed massacre! Coincidence? I think not.
These so-called coincidences are the purposeful providence of God. Hidden from the characters, but blatant to readers.
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Jonah was too proud to be taught, so God gives him a task that brings the issue to the surface and then he slowly skims away the dirt. God loves us too deeply to leave us without correction. I am grateful for brothers and sisters who love me enough to speak up when I do something stupid. They are a wonderful gift from God. Treasure the people in your life who love you enough to have tough conversations.

Dishing Out and Taking in Correction
Correction hurts. Even when we speak truthfully, we can go too far, cut too deep, and end up being harmful, not helpful. When we are careless, our words become weapons (Js 3:1-9). On the flip side, misunderstanding the motive when a friend corrects us can sever a decades-long friendship. Pride can stick its fingers in our ears and blocks any noise of rebuke. Giving and receiving correction is dangerous, but needed.
A wise person learns how to deliver and digest correction. Proverbs 9:8 says, “rebuke the wise, and he will love you,” and Proverbs 12:18 says, “the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Watching God correct Jonah is one place to see the wisdom of these proverbs in action.
Watching God Correct
As God corrects Jonah, he uses different tactics. He does not always bring a belt. He uses a variety of strategies. When you expect God to send a different, more obedient prophet, instead, he doubles down on Jonah (Jonah 3:1-4). When you assume God will send another storm, he sits for a conversation (4:1-11). God shows skill and sensitivity with Jonah. God humbles him when he is proud (1-2), exhorts him when he wavers (3:1-4), gently exposes his idols (4:5-11), teaches him when he doubts (4:10-11), and when Jonah despairs God carries him forward (4:9).
His timing, his tone, and his motive are always perfect. His words are a scalpel in the hand of the perfect surgeon. God never cuts in the wrong place or cuts too deep. Every place he cuts, he heals.
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This is just one reason why the church is so precious. As the word of the gospel goes out and gathers believers to Jesus (John 10:16), these new believers form gatherings called churches. In the book Word-Centered Church, Jonathan Leeman says, “A Christian’s new DNA, which he’s received from the Word and Spirit, knows that it now belongs to something larger . . . his new being longs to be gathered to other believers now—on earth” (87). Jesus sets your story in a local church because faith flourishes in fellowship. It would be tragic for us to write ourselves out of the story, watching the flame of our faith slowly fade because we distanced ourselves from fellowship.
Two passages in Hebrews show four reasons fellowship helps us run the race of the Christian life.
Protection Against Hardened Hearts
Soldiers stand guard not only for themselves, but also for their fellow soldiers. Fellow believers likewise guard each other through a word of exhortation. “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Heb. 3:13–14).
The Saturday night before in-person Sunday services were shut down for us, our youth group was away for our annual retreat. I asked our students to gather in small circles around each youth leader and pray for them. We may assume teenagers today are indifferent towards God and so self-absorbed they don’t think about others. However, these teenagers went without hesitation and covered their leaders in prayer. Seeing a fifteen-year-old put their hand on the shoulder of their fifty-year-old leader, with tears in their eyes, and pray for them is a moment Zoom cannot re-create. I missed moments like this.
Like an army locking shields to protect everyone from enemy arrows, we surround each other with shields of exhortation and prayer. We guard our hearts for Christ in the fellowship of believers.