My friend,
You already know the hours I am talking about — the scan before sunrise, the late-night debrief you run in your own head, stitching together what was said and what wasn't and what it means for tomorrow. You've been doing this for so long that it no longer feels like an effort—it's as natural as breathing. Let me tell you where it took me.
I made the king's gate my home — not because anyone assigned me to it, but because I understood that the true version of events never announces itself. It drifted through in fragments — an official lingering too long, a servant whose expression did not match his words, a silence where there should have been noise. The gate was where those fragments gathered, if you were patient enough to be there when they did.
One morning, I caught two of the king's officers — Bigthan and Teresh — whispering what they believed no one would hear (Esther 2:21-23). That discovery was not luck. It was the compound interest of showing up at the gate when nothing interesting was happening.
Situational awareness is not a summit you reach — it is something you maintain. The chiefs who get blindsided are rarely the ones who lacked access. They are the ones who stopped looking. I watched gifted people lose the thread, not because they lost their skill, but because they let the gate go unmanned. One day the world they were advising on had quietly moved on, and they were offering counsel on a reality that no longer existed. It was a failure of patience with the unglamorous work of staying current.
I could never be everywhere in Susa, and neither can you — so I learned to extend my reach through others.
Esther and I were each other's ears — she carried word from inside the palace, I carried word from the city. That channel was not built in a crisis. It was built slowly, through years of demonstrated faithfulness, until both of us knew the information would be handled with care. Tend your network before the urgency hits. The colleague you invest in on an ordinary Tuesday is often the one who reaches you on the Thursday that changes everything.
And here I want to speak plainly about the tools you carry that I never had at the gate - like AI or data analytics. They can watch what you cannot watch, compress what would take you days to read, and surface a pattern while it is still small enough to matter. Use them the way I used the gate — as a listening post, never as a substitute for the judgment that only years in the room can build.
Tools can gather but they do not discern. The read on why a trusted ally has gone quiet, the feel of the room when the numbers say everything is fine — that lives in you. It cannot be outsourced. Let the tools help extend your reach. You handle the wisdom.
Much of this work stays invisible when it succeeds. No one applauds the crisis that never happened. But you do it anyway — because you understand what most in the building do not: invisibility is not the same as insignificance.
Keep your post. Tend your channels. Filter every tool through the judgment God has given you. And trust that the One who moves through every page of our story — never named, never absent — is already at work in the very things you are watching for.
Write me when the watching grows heavy. I am always near.
With affection and deep respect for what you carry,
Mordecai
Let’s Pray
Father, thank You for the privilege You have given me to pray for chiefs on the Hill. Their work is critical, and their rewards do not match their level of effort. They are not often seen nor acknowledged by their bosses or colleagues. But You see. You care. And You are there, a very present help in their time of need. So give them Your grace and strength to carry on the job. Surround them with resources and people who can help them stay current and know what their leaders need, and what those who work with them need. Give them insight beyond their knowledge, and most importantly, help them to know You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Next in The Mordecai Framework: Post 5 — Stay in Your Elevated Place