I have to admit I am not a good Bible reader. I tend to mentally skip from event to event – skimming over bits of history and connecting verses. Thus I tend to think these Bible stories unfolded at the same pace as I read them: quickly! (No wonder I think God should react to my life’s events at a breakneck speed.)
But the reality is that most of these events recorded in the Bible took place over many years. Swindoll explained that actually four years went by between chapters 1 and 2 of Esther. Four years between the banishment of Vashti and the entry of Esther. And another year of intense preparation before Esther was formally presented to the King. Esther was not exactly an overnight phenomenon.
Swindoll summed this up perfectly:
“We tend to think that if God is really engaged, He will change things within the next hour or so. Certainly by sundown. Absolutely by the end of the week. But God is not a slave to the human clock. Compared to the works of mankind, He is extremely deliberate and painfully slow. As religious poet George Herbert wisely penned, ‘God’s mill grinds slow, but sure.’”I’m beginning to understand this lesson, slowly but surely!
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Sandy, you mention the story of Esther. Makes me wonder if she'd been praying for something new and wonderful in her life, and wondering when it would happen. (You think?)
ReplyDeleteI never paid attention to the fact that there was 4 years between Vashti's banishment and Esther's entrance.