In 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was sent down to Sarajevo to inspect the troops. Today, we would call that type of visit a photo op. It was purely ceremonial—a way to show the flag and remind the locals exactly who was in charge.
To be honest, Ferdinand wasn’t much to look at—just another royal cousin in a continent crawling with them. If the day had gone according to schedule, he would have been a footnote in a dusty history book.
But history rarely follows the script.
First, a hidden assassin tossed a bomb at the Archduke’s open-top car. But because of a delay on the fuse, it bounced off the folded convertible roof and exploded under the vehicle behind them instead. Ferdinand, shaken but alive, insisted on changing the plan to visit the wounded officers at the hospital.
The only problem was, nobody told the drivers.
They made a wrong turn, and when the General yelled for them to stop, the driver slammed on the brakes. The car was a 1911 Gräf & Stift with a notoriously finicky gearbox. It stalled—dead still—on a side street. And it just so happened to stall right in front of Gavrilo Princip, the bomber’s best friend. Princip couldn’t believe his eyes. He stepped up to the stalled car and fired two shots.
By itself, that should have been a local tragedy. But Europe was a tangled web of secret alliances. Like dominoes falling, a driver’s wrong turn dragged the great powers of the world into the trenches. Twenty million people died. From those ashes rose a fanatic in Germany, a second World War, and the shadow of the mushroom cloud.
The entire 20th century turned on a dime because a driver got lost and a gearbox got stuck.
We tend to think that the timeline of human existence is steered by great leaders making decisions in oak-paneled rooms. But often, the making of history turns on seemingly random events. It looks like chaos. But sometimes, what looks like a roll of the dice is actually the deliberate moving of a piece.
Consider an obscure priest named Zechariah.
In the days of King Herod, Zechariah was just one face in a sea of eighteen thousand priests. He spent his life waiting for a turn that most men never got. For two weeks a year, his division was called up to Jerusalem to serve at the Temple. It was crowded, busy work. But there was one job that stood above the rest.
Twice a day, a priest was chosen to enter the Holy Place and burn incense. It was the highest honor a priest could ever hold. And because there were so many of them, you could only do it once in your lifetime. To select the priest for the duty, they cast lots. Today, the world would call it the luck of the draw, but the Bible knows nothing of luck.
Picture yourself as Zechariah in that moment. You are in the later years of your life, just another face in the crowd. You’ve thought about this possibility for decades, but you never actually expect it to happen. But on one specific day, in a year when the world was dark and silent, the lot fell on you.
He stepped into the Holy Place alone. Outside, the crowd was praying, but inside, it was just Zechariah, the golden altar, and the heavy scent of incense rising in the darkness. You can imagine him there, his hands shaking a little as he lights the incense. He is saying the prayers, sweating through his robes, trying desperately to make sure he does everything perfectly right for his one big moment.
And then, he realizes he isn’t alone.
To his right, standing by the altar, was the angel Gabriel. It wasn’t a gentle realization; he was scared out of his wits. The Bible says fear fell upon him—a shock so deep he began to tremble. In that heart-stopping moment, the angel wasn’t just giving a sermon; he was delivering a promise for the son Zechariah and his wife had prayed for for years.
He told him that Elizabeth would bear a child named John. And this John would be the voice crying in the wilderness to prepare the way for the Lord. But in that moment of shock and awe, Zechariah struggled to believe it. (Wouldn’t we all?) So Zechariah asked for a sign, and the angel gave him one: Silence.
Because the lot fell on Zechariah that day, John the Baptist was born. Because John was born, the way was prepared. Imagine Zechariah walking out of the temple that day. He has the biggest news in the history of his nation, but he opens his mouth and nothing comes out. Even in his silence, the plan moved forward.
We spend so much of our lives wringing our hands over the “big” things. We watch the news and worry about the decisions made by powerful men in thousand-dollar suits. We think that is where history is written.
But look at the story.
The 20th century was shaped by a driver taking a wrong turn in a cheap car. The story of our salvation turned on what looked like a toss of the dice in a quiet temple. Proverbs 16:33 tells us, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”
God doesn’t just rule over world capitals; He rules over the seemingly random. He is in the stalled engine. He is in the delay. He is in the name pulled out of a hat.
So if things in your life feel out of control today, take heart. There is no such thing as an accident. There is only the deliberate, quiet moving of the pieces by a God who wastes nothing.