Proverbs 16:9 tells us that “the mind of man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps.”
We might see it luck, chance or even coincidence, but really it is God’s providence and Him orchestrating things for our good. Just as God arranged for Moses’ mother to be hired to raise him, God is continually in the business of putting people in the right place to carry out His divine plan. Sometimes though, God’s divine plan is not in people’s favour, as seen in the case of Haman.
We open episode 9 with Haman. “Haman took the robe and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the city square” and then “hurried home, mourning, with his head covered. Yet before Haman had the opportunity to do much mourning at all, “the king’s eunuchs arrived and hastily brought Haman to the banquet which Esther had prepared.”
I can see the end approaching.
Well we’ve still got some drama to get through.
At the banquet, king Ahasuerus asked Esther what it was that she wanted. “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done” (7:2). However, this time Esther wasn’t thinking about herself. She didn’t care for half of the kingdom. What she truly wanted was for not only her life but also the lives of her people to be spared from an attack that was planned against them. And well, the king was enraged.
Ah, I was even starting to like this guy, and there he goes getting angry at his wife again.
The king was enraged, but not at Esther, for he asked her, “Who is he, and where is he, who would presume to do thus?” And of course, she reported Haman.
So, a few hours earlier we’ve seen Haman crying, and now we’ve got him sitting before the king, terrified.
The king was so annoyed that he went outside to try cool off from the situation, but Haman stayed behind in the room and begged Esther for his life, and well, I guess it got out of hand. Just in that moment the king walked in, and we cut to black. End of season.
What do you mean by it got out of hand? What are you talking about? End of season?
Of course not, episode 10.
8 Now when the king returned from the palace garden into the place where they were drinking wine, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was. Then the king said, “Will he even assault the queen with me in the house?” As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. (Esther 7:8)
Ah Haman. Haman. Haman. Haman. What are we going to do with you young man? Falling on the couch where the Queen was, just after you got accused of trying to kill her? And you even got caught by the king. Do you not fear death?
I guess he wasn’t thinking right in the moment, especially with everything that had happened to him prior. It’s sad because Harbonah, one of the eunuchs who were before the king made it even worse saying, “Behold indeed, the gallows standing at Haman’s house fifty cubits high, which Haman made for Mordecai who spoke good on behalf of the king!” And the king said, “Hang him on it.”
10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided.
God is able to turn any situation around. The Bible is full of them. Examples of God taking what looked like a hopeless situation and turning it around. For example, Joseph. Joseph was sold into slavery, framed and imprisoned within Egypt, but God worked it out so that he became next in line to the Pharaoh. We’ve seen God do it in the life of Esther. We can see God do it in our own. In fact, He has already started. God directs our path to get us exactly where we are supposed to be.
According to my plan, I was never supposed to come to Nottingham. I was never supposed to meet the people that I met. I was never supposed to join RY. Studying the word and writing, was the last thing on my mind. I was never supposed to start posting it on my private story. Or get encouraged to create a website. All of this started with me missing my target by one grade, and as a result making God’s target by one grade. One grade. And what a difference it made. God has a funny way of taking things out of our hands and putting them into His own.
Regardless of how impossible things may look, I want to encourage you to never give up or quit on God.
My Sunday Skl 