God's Providence

As I have mentioned before, our Multigenerational LifeGroup (Sunday School) is going through the Catechism.  We are on Question 11 "What is God's providence?"  Answer:  "God's providence is holy, wise and powerful preserving and governing every creature and every action."

This past week we read a lot of Scripture from the book of Esther.  Do you know that in all the book of Esther, God is not mentioned directly?  Anyway, last week's catechism discussion focused around Mordecai's faith in the providence of God.  That no matter what Esther decided to do about the fact that the King, her husband, had just ordered all Jews to be killed (the King did not know at the time that Esther, his wife, was also a Jew), the Jews would not be killed because the future Messiah was to come from the Jews.

God's providence is all through the book of Esther, from the fact that Esther was chosen to be the next Queen, to the fact that King Xerxes couldn't sleep one night and read the transcripts of the happenings of the past few days and found out that Mordecai, Esther's cousin, had uncovered a plot by two of the King's men to kill him.  It is a great, great read!  And so much to learn.

We were so excited Saturday to read our catechism discussion questions and read the verses in Esther.  Such a great story about anger and pride and irony and faith.  But, that wasn't even the best part.  The best part was arriving in our church service after LifeGroup only to find out that our Pastor is going to spend the next few weeks discussing the book of Esther in depth!  Talk about God's providence.

The kids were apart of the discussion in our LifeGroup.  And then we go to the church service and the Pastor is preaching the same story.  The kids recognized names and dates and plots.  This is just one somewhat seemingly minor example of the providence of God.  Our Life Group leader encouraged us to look back over our lives and pick out a few examples of where we could see God had worked.  Most every adult had something to say.  There are many, many areas in my life where I can see how God worked some things out.  Although I didn't always see it at the time.

I am really excited about our study in Esther.  My guess is that God has something to say to me and my family through the book of Esther and I am intrigued to say the least. . .