We all have had those moments in our memories of tremendously challenging times that took all our strength, focus, and resources to live through it. As believers, we remember falling on our knees daily, asking for God’s wisdom and strength to walk through it with His help. Later, at just the right time and place, a miraculous victory over the challenge happened—without much effort on our part.
Immediately we wondered—why did we worry and fret so much about it? God gave victory in His Way in His Perfect Timing and it seemed like we didn’t have much to add to His solution. Our battles are with our trust and faith in God. Challenges in this imperfect world of troubles God uses to build our faith and teach us to love, trust, and obey Him without dragging along the baggage of our self-imposed doubts and fears.
If the story of God through Esther has taught us anything, it is this; we learn that complete trust and obedience in God with a heart that desires His heart, is the pathway to victory over all enemies who speak against God. We also learn that we should remember with joy and celebration all the days God provided victory in our lives. Forget the misery and stop replaying the hurts for that is useless for growth and maturity of faith. Instead, remember the very day God intervened and brought victory with resolution and peace! Then celebrate it each year!
Esther 9
On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the edict commanded by the king was to be carried out. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them. 2 The Jews assembled in their cities in all the provinces of King Xerxes to attack those determined to destroy them. No one could stand against them, because the people of all the other nationalities were afraid of them. 3 And all the nobles of the provinces, the satraps, the governors and the king’s administrators helped the Jews, because fear of Mordecai had seized them. 4 Mordecai was prominent in the palace; his reputation spread throughout the provinces, and he became more and more powerful.
5 The Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and they did what they pleased to those who hated them. 6 In the citadel of Susa, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men. 7 They also killed Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, 8 Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, 9 Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai and Vaizatha, 10 the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. But they did not lay their hands on the plunder.
11 The number of those killed in the citadel of Susa was reported to the king that same day. 12 The king said to Queen Esther, “The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman in the citadel of Susa. What have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? Now what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? It will also be granted.”
13 “If it pleases the king,” Esther answered, “give the Jews in Susa permission to carry out this day’s edict tomorrow also, and let Haman’s ten sons be impaled on poles.”
14 So the king commanded that this be done. An edict was issued in Susa, and they impaled the ten sons of Haman. 15 The Jews in Susa came together on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and they put to death in Susa three hundred men, but they did not lay their hands on the plunder.
16 Meanwhile, the remainder of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also assembled to protect themselves and get relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand of them but did not lay their hands on the plunder. 17 This happened on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.
18 The Jews in Susa, however, had assembled on the thirteenth and fourteenth, and then on the fifteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.
19 That is why rural Jews—those living in villages—observe the fourteenth of the month of Adar as a day of joy and feasting, a day for giving presents to each other.
Purim Established
20 Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, 21 to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar 22 as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.
23 So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. 24 For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot) for their ruin and destruction. 25 But when the plot came to the king’s attention, he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles. 26 (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur.) Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, 27 the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed. 28 These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews—nor should the memory of these days die out among their descendants.
29 So Queen Esther, daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter concerning Purim. 30 And Mordecai sent letters to all the Jews in the 127 provinces of Xerxes’ kingdom—words of goodwill and assurance— 31 to establish these days of Purim at their designated times, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had decreed for them, and as they had established for themselves and their descendants in regard to their times of fasting and lamentation. 32 Esther’s decree confirmed these regulations about Purim, and it was written down in the records.
WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?
Take it from Queen Esther and Mordecai; God is the One and Only to be trusted to follow! God puts ordinary people in places that position them to do His will. God knows we were born “for such a time” for our good and His glory. We respond with obedience with surrendered hearts to His will and plan to save the world through us. This is how God works!
The Jews established the Festival of Purim to remind their children year after year that God had saved Israel from destruction. But a new generation can easily come along and take for granted the blessings that previous generations struggled and sacrificed to attain.
We must pause and ask ourselves;
Can God’s victorious stories be diluted with the world’s view of success and our busyness that distracts us from celebrating what God as done and is doing?
With each generation, is the story told less, leaving out important details of God that saved a people? Do we only “give the gifts to each other and give to the poor”?
Does the story only become a tradition to perform over a relationship to have and to hold securely with God?
Oh Lord, we pray this is not the case; but we know it can be.
The story of Esther is the story of God’s love for His people. It is His story of victory for His people over their enemies. God’s servant, Mordecai along with Esther commanded this victory to be celebrated in an annual festival. The whole story was recorded in two official letters, written in a journal, and ultimately included in the Old Testament Scriptures—The Book of Esther! What a great example of remembering what God has done for believers as they recall history and the hand of God in the world.
For years, I have journaled every day to God who gave me life in Jesus Name. I’m compelled to tell who He is and what He has done in my life so others will know Him, too. I have petitioned God on behalf of others. I recall with thanksgiving how problems were solved and healing came. All this is saved in my computer now over past handwritten pages in many notebooks as a recording of challenges and how God used everything in my life to teach me to be more like Him. I pray that the words will be helpful someday to future generations as they seek God alone for their salvation and help. To God be the glory, honor, and praise! It is with a grateful, humbled heart that I remember and record His victories in my life.
By God’s Holy Spirit leading me, Daily Manna is written each day to tell the world of the love of God who sent His Son to save us and free us to grow in His relentless love by His marvelous mercy and unending grace. Thank you for reading, subscribing, and sharing with others the love God has for everyone!
Lord,
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
In Jesus Name, Yes and Amen!
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