His Encouragement #196

Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

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The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright; their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.

Psalm 37:14-15 (ESV)

Verses 14 and 15 of Psalm 37 is a continuation of last week’s discussion. The wicked plan…and then the wicked do. They do come against the weak and the poor. They do persecute and kill. There are points in all of history where it does look like the bad guys win. But this is folly. Their “win” is only temporary and not real.

I often say that God is the Boss. If you picked up my Bible and turned the pages you would find written all over the place, “God is THE Boss!!!” I do this because all over the Bible is illustration after illustration of God being in control. He controls ALL — men’s actions, men’s inactions, their beginnings, and their ends. God is the Master Planner. Nothing shocks Him, nothings surprises Him, and He uses all to bring about His ultimate, good, perfect plan.

Whenever I get discouraged by the bad in this world, I force myself to repeat over and over that God is THE Boss. Then I remember two specific moments of comeuppance in the Bible: Hamon in the book of Esther and Daniel in the lion’s den in Daniel 6.

In both stories, wicked people work nefarious, evil plans against God’s people. In Esther, Hamon wants to commit full-on, government-approved genocide. In Daniel, a group of very jealous jerks want to get rid of Daniel simply because he is good and that makes them look bad. In both circumstances, God’s people suffer. They stress. They struggle. All at the hands of the wicked. For a moment, it even looks like the bad guys win. Hamon receives the blessing by the government to wipe out every Jewish man, woman, and child, and Daniel is thrown into the lion’s den. I can only imagine the level of stress the Jews felt when they realized there was going to be a legal day of death for them in King Xerxes’s kingdom, all 127 provinces. And I have no doubt that Daniel stressed HARD right before he was tossed into a dank, dark den full of hungry lions.

But God laughs! And then He establishes man’s steps (Proverbs 16:9).

Through Esther and Mordechai, God is able to thwart Hamon’s evil plan and turn that plan against Hamon. Hamon builds a gallows to hang Mordechai on, and ends up being killed on his own evil device. And likewise for Daniel, mean, jealous administrators manipulated governmental rules thinking they could get what they want, but end up getting torn limb from limb by their own lions. Both of these stories make my Justice-loving heart super happy. And both of these stories remind me that God is indeed THE Boss. He let’s nothing happen — including men’s plans — unless He allows it.

If you, dear reader, are struggling with the evil running rampant through our world today, remember Esther and Mordechai and Daniel. Remember that we are invincible like Daniel in the lion’s den unless it is our time to go Home. And then we’re Home with Jesus. You have NOTHING to fear as long as you believe that God is your sure shield. Men may plan. They may come against you. But GOD is THE BOSS! Perhaps those men coming against you will hang themselves on their own gallows. Just trust God through it all!

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?