Gen 37:15-17: And a man found him wandering in the fields. And the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” 16 “I am seeking my brothers,” he said. “Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” 17 And the man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’ ” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

The story of Joseph is one of the most well known stories from the Bible. His brothers, who are murderously jealous, sell him into slavery. After a series of providential events, Joseph ends up saving his family thus preserving the heritage of Israel and, of course, the Messiah. Looking back on his life, he tells his brothers, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive…” (Gen 50:20).

Think about that. The brothers acted freely. Yet, God used their sinful choices to providentially orchestrate the whole ordeal. If one single thing had happened differently, the story would’ve been completely different.

In Genesis 37, at the beginning of the story, Joseph is told to go check on his brothers who were pasturing near the city of Shechem. When Joseph arrived, there were no brothers to be found. He couldn’t call them… or text… or even track them with GPS. So, Joseph wandered around looking for them. Then, the Bible tells us that he found a stranger who just so happened to hear the brothers say that they were headed to a village called Dothan.

What if Joseph had never met this stranger from Shechem? What were the chances that this man would overhear the brothers’ conversation? How odd is it that this particular man found Joseph wandering through the fields?

This encounter with the stranger from Shechem lasts for 2 ½ verses. That’s it – a meaningless detail in an otherwise captivating story. Yet, without him, Joseph never finds his brothers, he isn’t thrown into a cistern, he’s not present when the Ishmaelites come by in their caravan to Egypt, he doesn’t get sold to Potiphar, he doesn’t rise to a place of prominence, he doesn’t save Israel from the famine, and the seed of Abraham (i.e., Jesus) is never born.

Beloved, our lives are filled with these ostensibly meaningless details. Yet, they are a vital part of our story, setting us on our providential journeys. How many strangers from Shechem have we unknowingly met? How has God used the incidental moments in our lives to place us exactly where he wants us? There is no such thing as happenstance or coincidence. We are where we are because God has ordained it. You will never out maneuver the Lord. Trust his timing. Trust his wisdom. Trust his sovereignty. It might not be the path you would’ve chosen… but it’s the path you were always meant to walk.