Well the day finally came.
The date written in Haman’s decree didn’t disappear and the threat didn’t go away because Haman was gone. Everything we talked about yesterday was still true.
They still had to face it.
But Esther 9:1 tells us that on the very day their enemies hoped to overpower them, the tables were turned. That should get you excited. It does me. Think about everything it took to get here. Esther was an orphan who became queen. Mordecai did the right thing and seemed completely forgotten. Haman rose to power and decided one man’s refusal to bow was enough reason to destroy an entire people. There was mourning, fasting, waiting, banquets, a sleepless king, a forgotten record, a gallows and another decree. And through all of it, God’s name was never mentioned.
Yet here we are in Chapter 9 looking back, and His fingerprints are everywhere. And I had to laugh a little this morning because once again, God has lined up what I’m reading with what we just talked about at church last night.
We talked about getting back the joy of our salvation, and we talked about the power of our testimony, remembering what God has done and telling it.
Then I open Esther 9 this morning and what do they do? They remember. They tell the story. And they celebrate.
And After everything they had been through, Mordecai established Purim so future generations wouldn't forget what God had brought them through. They feasted, gave gifts to each other and gave to the poor. They didn't just survive and move on.
But so often that's what we do. We'll pray and pray for God to get us through something. We'll cry, question, wait and wonder what He's doing. Then He makes a way, we get through it
and we're already worried about the next thing and we've forgotten what he just rescued us from.
Meanwhile, God is saying, Do you remember what I just brought you through?
We need to remember.
Remember the door He opened.
Remember the one He closed.
Remember the prayer He answered.
Remember the thing we were convinced was going to take us out.
Remember those Chapter 2 moments that made absolutely no sense until we finally reached Chapter 6.
And then tell somebody.
That's our testimony.
Because somebody else is still standing in a chapter we've already survived, wondering if God is anywhere in it. Our testimony gets to say, He is. And I think that's part of getting our joy back too. When we've spent so much time looking at what's wrong, what's next, what we're fighting or what we're waiting on, we can forget how much God has already done.
Remembering changes that.
The Jews didn't celebrate because the decree never happened. They celebrated because the decree didn't get the final word. They remembered the mourning, but they also remembered what God did with it. They remembered the fear, but they celebrated the deliverance. And now I'm seeing last night's lesson all over Esther 9.
Remember.
Testify.
Celebrate.
Lets not just survive what God brought us through and move on so quickly that we forget to tell the story. Because remembering His faithfulness has a way of restoring our joy.
So today I'm not rushing to ask God for the next thing. I'm stopping long enough to remember the last thing. Because now that I can look backward, I can see what I couldn't always see while I was living it:
He was there.
Hidden, not absent.
His fingerprints were everywhere.
And they still are.
(And for my Church Ladies....I wrote all of this in the presence of my enemy this morning 😀 My Cups Gonna Run!!!)
Love Pastor Mandy
MandiesDandies / Ark of Hope
Daily Reading Esther 9
#HiddenNotAbsent #Esther9 #Remember #Testify #Celebrate #JoyOfOurSalvation #TellYourStory #HisFingerprintsAreEverywhere #ArkOfHope
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