God in your everyday life …

For many people, life often feels like a collection of disconnected moments. We navigate our days moving from one responsibility to the next, responding to minor inconveniences and daily tasks with little thought that these events might be part of a larger design. Yet, the biblical record suggests that what appears to be the mundane fabric of our existence is frequently the very place where God is actively working to fulfill His purposes.

We see this truth unfold in the lives of ordinary people who were unaware of the larger story they were participating in, such as a man named Saul who was tasked by his father, Kish, to find some donkeys that had wandered away from their land. Saul traveled through the region with a servant, searching for the lost animals, unaware that God was orchestrating the search specifically to bring him into the path of the prophet Samuel. In 1 Samuel 9:3-4, we read the account of how this search began:

“One day Kish’s donkeys strayed away, and he told Saul, ‘Take a servant with you, and go look for the donkeys.’ So Saul took one of the servants and traveled through the hill country of Ephraim, the land of Shalishah, the Shaalim area, and the entire land of Benjamin, but they couldn’t find the donkeys anywhere.”

To Saul, this was a frustrating, unremarkable errand. Animals had wandered off, and it was his responsibility to retrieve them. He had no way of knowing that his travel route, the duration of the search, and the eventual exhaustion of his supplies were all being sovereignly guided to ensure a specific encounter. God intended to appoint Saul as king, and He utilized a routine agricultural problem to bring Saul to the exact location where Samuel was prophesying (for the complete narrative of this journey, his meeting with Samuel, and his eventual anointing as king, see 1 Samuel 9:1–10:1).

This same pattern of God working behind the scenes is visible in the life of Joseph, a young man who was sold into slavery by his own brothers and eventually became a high-ranking leader in Egypt, overseeing the food supply for the entire region during a time of famine. Years before this position of power, Joseph was simply a young man sent by his father to look for his brothers in the fields. Genesis 37:14-17 records:

“‘Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are getting along,’ Jacob said. ‘Then come back and bring me a report.’ So Jacob sent him on his way, and Joseph traveled to Shechem from their home in the valley of Hebron. When he arrived there, a man from the area noticed him wandering around the countryside. ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked. ‘I’m looking for my brothers,’ Joseph replied. ‘Do you know where they are pasturing their sheep?’ ‘Yes,’ the man told him. ‘They have moved on from here, but I heard them say, “Let’s go on to Dothan.”‘ So Joseph followed his brothers to Dothan and found them there.”

Joseph’s journey was filled with redirected paths and want seemed like chance meetings. If the man in the field had not provided directions, Joseph would not have found his brothers, and the chain of events that eventually saved his family from famine would have been disrupted. Joseph experienced the chaos of betrayal and displacement, yet Scripture clarifies that these circumstances were not random occurrences. He later recognized this when he told his brothers in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people” (for the complete narrative of Joseph’s life and the full account of how God orchestrated his journey from the fields to the palace, see Genesis, chapters 37–50.)

Finding the divine in the daily
It is easy to compartmentalize our lives, separating the “spiritual” activities from the “practical” ones. We assume God is present during a church service or while reading Scripture, but we often overlook His involvement in the search for a new job, the unexpected delay in traffic, or a difficult conversation with a neighbor.

Consider the account of George Mueller, a 19th-century evangelist who cared for thousands of orphans in Bristol, England. Mueller operated his orphanages entirely on prayer, never asking for money. One morning, the children were seated at the table for breakfast, but there was no food in the house. Mueller prayed, thanking God for the food. Moments later, a knock came at the door; a local baker stated that God had kept him awake all night, urging him to bake bread for the orphans. Simultaneously, a milkman arrived because his cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage, and he decided to give the milk to the children rather than let it spoil. What looked like a series of inconvenient mechanical failures and restless nights was actually the precise arrangement of circumstances to sustain those children.

When we view our lives through a lens of faith, we realize that our daily frustrations and “lost donkeys” may be the exact tools God is using to guide us toward His objectives. Recognizing this does not require us to invent deep spiritual meaning for every minor event, but it does invite us to remain aware that the One who governs the movement of nations is the same One who attends to the details of our daily routines.

Trusting in this reality changes how we approach the unexpected. Instead of viewing interruptions as obstacles, we can view them as potential appointments. We are not drifting through a chaotic world, we are being led by a God who is working in the quiet, inner spaces of our lives to bring about His good purposes.

Scotty