ESTHER'S BANQUET: THRONEROOM STRATEGIES FOR OUTSTANDING RESULTS

Well hello there dear gist partner!

How e dey be? Happy New Month! Welcome to my birth month, I pray that this month is blissful for you.

Welcome to today’s gist.

We’ll be continuing from where we left off last week. So, now Esther has decided to go plead the case of her people before King Ahasuerus. Normally as his queen now, person go expect say as she entered the Throne room and the king stretched out his scepter to her, she would have just said something along the lines of “my King, so you allowed Haman to decide to kill my people abi?” Or somehow just look for a way to go straight to the matter of the decreed annihilation of the Jews after all, time was of the essence. But what does Esther do? She invites the king and Haman to a banquet she was preparing in their honour, making it look like her ultimate goal in life was to host them. While they dined with Esther that evening, the king repeated the request he had made to Esther: that she should ask him for anything she wanted, even if it was half of his kingdom and he would give it to her. What does Esther request? A second day to host the king and Haman.

At this point, it probably seemed like she was wasting too much time! Madam! Go to the heart of the matter! Time is of the essence, why are you hosting the sworn enemy of your people? You should be breathing fire and brimstone down his neck!

At the second banquet, the king asks Esther again what she would have him give her, promising her anything, even half of his kingdom, a kingdom spanning 127 provinces –thank God for his sake that Esther wasn’t a wicked woman, such a rash promise for cost am. Esther now goes in for the kill: “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.” (Esther 7:3-4, ESV)

Ehn!

You say?

Imagine telling the king of the most powerful kingdom in the world that someone wanted to kill his queen! Inside my palace? Who be this person wey get that kind mind? And Esther replied, “none other than this wicked Haman!” I imagine that Haman must have choked on whatever delicacy or drink he had in his mouth. In his anger, the king stormed out!

But, let’s stop for a minute and look at Esther’s approach to the whole matter of speaking to the king concerning the proposed annihilation of her people: rather than go straight to start making trouble or doing theatrics, she hosted the king and Haman to a meal, rather than make the king feel inconsiderate, foolish and ignorant in giving Haman free rein to kill an entire nation of people, she comes to the king pleading for their lives, making him feel powerful and appealing to his human, and loving, nature; Haman didn’t stand a chance against such a strategy! She had him roped in and locked down for destruction, all the while serving him delicious meals, and the mumu dey chop!

I asked myself, “how Esther take know say na the way to go about this mater be this? How did she think up such a plan?” Then my mind went to what she did before going to the king –she fasted for three days and nights! Strategy like Esther’s could only have come from God Himself and where else would she have gotten it but in the place of communion with God? I learnt from this series of events, the importance of receiving strategy from God; I believe the Omniscience of God is something we will never get to fully understand by ourselves –the largeness of the scope of His All-knowingness, there is nothing –past, present and future– that escapes His knowledge, He knows all things! He knows the way to go about any matter that would bring the desired results, even more than you’ll ever contemplate, He goes beyond the reaches of our small-minded humanness so He knows, at every given time, what you need to do to. 

And sometimes, the strategy won’t make sense, I mean if Mordecai had been told that Esther was inviting Haman to dinner, he must have wondered if she had taken leave of her senses because no be wetin dem send her do be that, but in the end, her strategy brought even more than the desired results. And that’s what following God’s strategy will do for you; not give you your desired result, but give you the best results which would be more than you would ever have achieved in your wildest imaginations. 

Now, the king has stormed out in his anger and Haman sees his life hanging on a very uneven balance, he then runs to Esther and kneels by the couch she is reclining on to plead for his life. The king then comes back from the garden where he went to cool off, sees Haman kneeling by Esther and for some reason, the only interpretation he gave to the scene was that Haman was trying to rape his wife in his palace. The striking thing is that in the entire book of Esther, from the time we got introduced to Haman the Agagite in chapter 3 until now, this is Haman’s first innocent act, kneeling to plead for his life, yet even this was interpreted to have guilty intentions. Normally, nobody would kneel to beg someone they intend to rape now. And even if Haman wanted to be that foolish, he wouldn’t have attempted to rape Esther in the presence of the king’s servants, all of whom were loyal to their king and queen, yet Ahasuerus did not consider this when he came upon the scene of Haman’s begging. You see, when the Lord is determined to bring about a result, there is nothing that he won’t turn to suit His plans, which is why He is Omnipotent. His power over all things and to do all things is not limited to anything –not even the workings of human mind is more than His ability to control, that is why we have heard stories of persons who at the last minute changed plans and decided to do something that would favour someone else even without realizing that it is God at work for that person’s benefit.

Last last, all that I’m saying to you today is that rather than run off on our own to go and do things because they seem like the way to go, meet God for strategy, ask Him to help you and teach you the way to go, and trust Him enough to do things the way He has instructed you to do them because that is the way to arrive at the best there is for you, which in every case would be more than you contemplated.

May God help us to be such yielded vessels that we do not undertake any venture without His instructions.

TUNES AND THOUGHTS: our song recommendation for this week is 'Rahama' by Kaestrings, specifically the live version –the original is good too but the live version is spirit and fire filled. The first time I heard this song, I was at a worship concert while I was in law school and Kaestrings himself was ministering, I remember listening to the lyrics of the song and telling God that truly this is me, in desperate need of His touch. This is not just a song, it is a cry for God to touch your life, to have mercy upon you, it is a declaration of your acknowledgement of the fact that there would never be anyone to help you but God, it is an admission of dependence on God and I pray that this song blesses you like it has blessed me.

Well that is that about that as far as our lessons on the book of Esther is concerned, see you next week on another matter.

Love,

Achenyo.

PS. It is 18 days to my birthday!