Esther 5-8

It took me about 10 minutes to read this passage.  Chapters 5 and 6 cover roughly a 24 hour period, that details numerous activities in the lives of the King, Queen, Haman, and Mordecai.  I wonder what kind of day the King was having before Queen Esther showed up.  Was he stressed out over some affair of state or a case requiring his judgment.  Being the leader of a great empire was surely not an easy task.  Whatever the events of that day were they seemed to melt away when Esther, his queen, made her appearance.  He was pleased to see her.  She asked him to dinner, but the King had dealt with another queen.  He suspected that there was something else than a meal that she had in mind; why else would she risk her life to enter his presence un-invited?  Though he was pleased to see his Queen and spend time with her God used the events of the day to bother the King.  He was so disturbed that he couldn’t sleep.  After tossing and turning for a while he sought the best method to lull him to sleep; hearing the King’s chronicle’s read.  I would have awoken the most mono-tone reader in the palace if I had been king.  No rest came to his eyes, but God did bring to his attention the good deed of Mordecai; a deed that the King had never rewarded.  All of these events make a fantastic story, but they are more than a story; they are a picture of the hand of God at work in peoples’ lives to bring glory to his name and fulfill his will on earth.  I believe that he is working in the same way in our lives today.

Stuart