Today we are in Kansas City for our annual staff advance.  This is an important time as we advance to the future and hammer out our vision for the coming year.  Please pray for us, that God will use this week to impart a new and fresh vision to each of us.

I have recently been blogging about the doctrine of God’s providence.  That God continually upholds, preserves, and governs His world — including everything and everyone in it — is a great comfort for the believer.  Unfortunately, many live out their lives without giving God’s providence a moment’s consideration. 

Providence in the Old Testament book of Esther
Esther is one of the most interesting and captivating stories illustrating God’s providence in the Old Testament, and yet it seems to get little attention, even among Christians.  There may be several reasons for this.  In fact, some interpreters throughout history have found Esther’s presence in the Old Testament to be troubling. Why?

And yet, in spite of all these things, Esther is one of the most beautiful pictures of God’s providence in all of Scripture.  I suspect that these conspicuous ‘omissions’ were intentionally orchestrated by God in order to show that His divine providence is still able to stand out in stark relief against the backdrop of an otherwise ’secular’ mindset that observes the world only through empirical lenses.

We all do this, I suspect — at least at times.  We and others tend to make the mistake of thinking that, because we can explain various phenomena from a ’scientific’ standpoint, then God is vanquished from the event(s).  We know the sun ‘rises’ because of the earth’s rotation as it travels around the sun.  We know the rain falls because we can explain it from the standpoint of barometric pressure, precipitation, etc.  In doing so, we think we have eliminated the need to evoke God as an explanation for such things.  In fact, He is often called by skeptics ‘the God of the gaps’.  But the Bible unashamedly says that it is still God who stands behind the events of the world.  It is still God who causes His sun to rise on both the evil and the good; it is God who sends His rain on both the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45), etc. 

How about you?  Do you tend to look at the events in your life merely through empirical lenses?  Let me challenge you to begin looking at your life through the eyes of Scripture.  Would you consider reading the book of Esther this week?  It’s a short book that can easily be read in one sitting.  Why don’t you accept this challenge, read the book of Esther with me, and then let me know what you think.