FORESIGHT AND FATE: GOD’S PLAN IN THE STORY OF AGAG

Well hello there dear gist partner.

How e dey be? 9 days into the New Year, how doth thou fare? Tis mine hope that thou farest fairly.

Welcome to today’s gist.

So, toward the end of 2024, I was studying the book of Esther and for the next couple of weeks, except for any day we feature a guest, I’ll be sharing some lessons I learnt in the course of my study and I pray it blesses you like it has blessed me.

The first lesson I’ll be talking about stems from Haman’s ancestry as established in Esther 3:1; the Bible records that Haman the son of Hamedatha was an Agagite. Now why is that worthy of note? Let’s do a quick backpedal to 1 Samuel 15 where God instructs Saul, through the prophet Samuel, to kill the entire people of Amalek –the Amalekites. Wetin be their king wey Saul spare name? Agag! Now Haman surfaces in the book of Esther, so many years, probably a few centuries, after Saul’s disobedience and puts one agenda as foremost in His mind: the destruction of the Jews!

And as I ruminated on this, I realized something; if Saul had been more diligent in obeying God’s instructions in 1 Samuel 15, Haman would never even have existed in the first place to begin to trouble the Israelites. But how was Saul to know that his seemingly little act of disobedience would have such long lasting repercussions? But did God know? Of course! He knew that if any Amalekite would survive, there was a possibility of them becoming troublers against Israel. So, He ordered their annihilation.  

My friend Israel says, and I agree with him, that the only way to know completely how it all ends is to sit in eternity because it is only there, beyond the reach and control of both space and time, that all the pieces of the puzzle fit perfectly to form the complete picture. And who sits in eternity? God does! God knows every possible outcome of our life and decisions; He knows what the effects of our disobedience or obedience would be –far beyond our own contemplations (because how was Saul to know that all these many years later, a seed of Agag would arise), and it is because of this knowledge that He gives us instructions which have the goal of leading us to, as my friend Israel puts it, the liberty of our souls.

But because we can’t see it all, sometimes we’re tempted to follow our wisdom and tweak God’s instructions to suit our whims, all the while thinking that nothing much would come, by way of negative effects, out of our disobedience, E GO SHOCK YOU! You sef go wonder if na that ‘small’ disobey wey you disobey cause this plenty things.

So, my advice to you and me is this: because we do not know what the effect of our disobedience would be and how much it would thwart and/or distort our fulfillment of divine purpose, e go better make we just dey jejely obey God dey go. There really is no need to try to risk it and disobey, whether because you think say you wise or to see wetin go happen if you no obey, I go tell you for free –the problem wey you go gather go plenty, after all the Bible has told us expressly that we should not be deceived, God is not mocked, na as you sow you go reap (Galatians 6:7, paraphrased).

OBEY GOD! There’s no need to find out the cost of disobedience.

May God help us to be obedient to every instruction He gives, no matter how seemingly little and trivial it is.

TUNES AND THOUGHTS: the song recommendation for this week is ‘Volume of the Book’ by Moses Akoh. This song is a call to obedience, to do God’s will no matter the circumstance. Particularly, the words “no matter whatever may come my way, I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow” resonate within my heart, it reminds me that my obedience must never be dependent on what happens to me but on the fact that there is an instruction from God to me. I pray this song blesses you like it blesses me.

Well, that is that about that as far as that is concerned, see you next week.

 

Love,

Achenyo.