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By: AJ Hochhalter You may listen to this devotion in audio form via podcast here.
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
1 Rescue me, Lord, from evildoers;
protect me from the violent,
2 who devise evil plans in their hearts
and stir up war every day.
3 They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s;
the poison of vipers is on their lips.
4 Keep me safe, Lord, from the hands of the wicked;
protect me from the violent,
who devise ways to trip my feet.
-Psalm 140:1-4
9 Haman went out that day happy and in high spirits. But when he saw Mordecai at the king’s gate and observed that he neither rose nor showed fear in his presence, he was filled with rage against Mordecai. 10 Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home.
Calling together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, 11 Haman boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials. 12 “And that’s not all,” Haman added. “I’m the only person Queen Esther invited to accompany the king to the banquet she gave. And she has invited me along with the king tomorrow. 13 But all this gives me no satisfaction as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate.”
14 His wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a pole set up, reaching to a height of fifty cubits, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai impaled on it. Then go with the king to the banquet and enjoy yourself.” This suggestion delighted Haman, and he had the pole set up.
In the passages above we see two sides of the same type of story. David, a man of God, is being pursued by wicked people. They are devising evil plans to get rid of him. In the passage from Esther we see a wicked person—Haman—devising plans to get rid of Mordecai, a man of God. We know that David eventually escapes the pursuit of the wicked person and ends up dying of old age. We also know that the wicked murderous scheming of Haman ends in his own demise by the very means of death he meant for Mordecai.
These two passages together tell us that God hears the cries of the vulnerable. David and Mordecai were both in vulnerable positions with people out to get them. In Mordecai’s case we get specific details about how God, through Esther, foiled the plans of Haman and preserved Mordecai and the Hebrews.
This does not mean that God will always intervene on our behalf in the way that we want. Bad things still happen to the people of God. In fact, wicked people even schemed and planned against Jesus—which ended in his death.
If we find ourselves in a vulnerable situation, with people planning and scheming against us, we can be confident that God hears our cry, that Christ is with us in our pain, in fact he has borne it himself. And in the end, even though God might not answer our prayers how we want, the ways of the wicked will be foiled and God will make all things right.