Friday, October 24, 2014

When Hope is Lost, Trust in God

Today marks the last day of the eight week study of Esther! Wow! What an amazing eight weeks! I truly have taken away so much from the interwoven themes throughout the entire book of Esther.



Last fridays post, The Current, discussed a time where I was hopeless and completely alone. This is probably along the lines of how the Jewish people felt at the end of Esther. 

The day was set for their enemy to attack a destroy and plunder without any means to protect themselves. They were crying out in mourning. 


And in every province, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

Esther 4:3

I cannot even fathom the depth of hopelessness and fear that they may have felt for their lives. I mean imagine being in their position, and someone told you that in one month someone is going to break into your house, steal your most precious items, destroy the rest and kill you and your family as you stood their unable to defend yourself.

Horror and hopelessness to the Nth degree. 

But you know the difference between me in my hopelessness 6 years ago and the Jews in their hopelessness? 

They fasted, they prayed. They trusted in God


May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13 

When we trust in God and his plan, and we stay faithful by praying, God will fill us with so much joy and peace. So much joy and peace that we will be able to look at our situation with hope because we know our God is good all of the time and he will use our situation for his good. 

God is faithful, God is loving, God is just. God is trustworthy. 

When we place our trust in God, we will over flow with an abundance of peace and joy, which are the components of Hope. 




The Jews could have decided to wallow and loose all hope for their lives, but instead they trusted God and were able to defend and defeat their enemies. 

Esther is so much more than a girl going from being an orphan to a Queen. Esther is about the continued reliance the Jews had on God and how we need to give everything to him so that we may have the unbreakable hope that everything will work out for God's good. 

Though just 10 chapters, there was an abundance of lessons that we can apply to our own lives. 
I hope that you have taken as much away from Esther as I have. If you missed a post, feel free to go back and catch up! 


photo credit: Lυвαιв via photopin cc

7 comments:

  1. I like this a lot! I think there are so many things that God wants us to learn but when we start to get frustrated, He's there to pick us up!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Esther is an amazing Bible character. I want my girls to both know about her, and I believe they have learned about her in Sunday School. Gotta check!

    ReplyDelete
  3. so many great reminders in your post. thank you for sharing

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you so much for this reminder. God is always on time, we just have to pray, trust and believe in him.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I take your post as a reminder that we cannot always have control, but we can have peace in our hearts if we remember that little truth.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Inspiring post. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting Faith In Every Day, I would love to hear from you!