Friday, July 8, 2022
Not Coincidence but Providence
“The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives” (Psalm 37:23 NLT).
Sometimes I’ll be out and about and sense that I should start a conversation with a certain person. I don’t know anything about them, and I don’t know the conversation will go. But I’ve come to realize that I need to respond to those promptings of the Holy Spirit.
That’s how it starts. It’s just a little nudge, a little direction from the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is that of the beauty queen, Hadassah. We also know her as Esther. She was a young Jewish woman whose cousin, Mordecai, raised her after her parents died.
The king of Persia wanted a new queen, so he held a beauty contest. Incredibly, Hadassah won that contest and became the queen of Persia. But then a villain named Haman launched a sinister plan to exterminate the Jewish people. And the king, who didn’t know that Hadassah was Jewish, signed a decree that every Jew would be put to death on a specified day.
Meanwhile, Hadassah was oblivious to what was going on. So Mordecai delivered a message to her at the palace: “If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14 NLT).
In other words, “This is your wake-up call, Hadassah. This is why you are where you are. You’re not here by coincidence; you’re here by Providence to save your people. And if you don’t do it, God will find someone else.”
Did it ever occur to you that God has placed you right where you are to reach certain people? Maybe God has been nudging you lately to talk to you someone you know. Seize the moment.
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