Thoughts: Hannah's Blog

I was reading the book of Isaiah chapter 7 where it is mentioned about a threat that Ahaz king of Judah had to face.

Now the house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with Ephraim”; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.” – Isaiah 7:2

What a comparison! The extent of their fear is made clear here. I think extreme fear does result in shivering. God sends word to Ahaz through Isaiah. Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood…

Though they are 2 big kingdoms out there, combining forces to try and defeat Judah, God views them as nothing but smoldering stubs of firewood, which are incapable of doing any harm. They can just burn slowly with smoke but no flame.

Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.”

The enemies have hatched their plans, made their alliances, they even chose who the next leader of Judah would be. Yet this is what the Lord had to say:

It will not take place, it will not happen,… Within sixty-five years
    Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.

What a word of assurance and promise. The enemies plots will not succeed! Let us look at 2 other instances where people’s plots against the children of God were turned around by God.

Haman’s plans

Haman seeks revenge against Mordecai but he is not satisfied to just bring him down, he wants to destroy his entire race and so he puts his plan into motion, The Bible says: “The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was bewildered.”

While Haman was plotting to destroy the Jews, God had put into motion the downfall of Haman. While Haman was setting up a 50-cubits high pole to have Mordecai impaled on it, the King was sleepless and used that time to read through the records and found about Mordecai’s good deed of saving the king’s life and he decided to honor Mordecai. While Haman was meeting the king, planning to ask for Mordecai’s head, the King made Haman honor Mordecai instead. We all know how the story ended.

Plot against Daniel

Let us move on to Daniel chapter 6. The jealous administrators hatched a plan to bring about an end to Daniel. They approached the king and made him send forth the decree. Daniel heard about it, but he still prayed to God like usual, having his windows open, three times a day.

The evil men run to the king and accuse Daniel of having disregarded the King and his decree and Daniel had to be put in the Lion’s den as per the rule. Here also the King spent a sleepless night, hoping that Daniel would be safe and that the God whom Daniel served so faithfully would rescue Daniel and God did rescue him miraculously!

We might not be facing the lion’s den or the death of our race, or no army is standing outside of our gates but  we might be facing the plots of enemies, filled with fear on how we are going to handle the situation we are in. There are things we can learn from the above 3 narrations.Three things stand out to me, which we need to apply in order to escape people’s plans.

1. TRUST in God

when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God. – Daniel 6:23

Daniel emerged out of the lion’s den unscathed because of his trust in God. If we too learn to put our trust in God, we will emerge out of tough and sticky situations unscathed. It might look daunting to us, but in God eyes, our oppressors are like smoldering stubs with no power, their days are numbered.

2. PRAY

Seek God’s counsel/guidance/wisdom in handling the situation at hand. Take time to pray: be it personal prayer like Daniel or corporate prayer like Esther. God will surely send forth his word of comfort and assurance and promise, hold on to it.

God is able to turn things around. Haman was impaled in the very pole he had prepared for Mordecai. Daniel’s enemies were put in the same lion’s den that Daniel was put in, the difference? Daniel was unharmed the entire night that he stayed there. Whereas, the lions overpowered his enemies and crushed all their bones before they could reach the floor of the lion’s den.

3. STAND FIRM in the faith

Do not give in to doubts or dwell on the what-ifs or be overwhelmed by the circumstances. It might be scary but don’t loose hope. We have seen 3 examples here, there are countless other examples in the Bible. Also God has helped us in the past and we have heard many testimonies of deliverance of others around us.

If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. – Isaiah 7:9

God will open doors of escape for us, He will rise people to help us, he will make our supervisors look on us with favour. So let us stand firm in the faith as he who promised is faithful. No matter who is planning what against us, we have the God-of-Angel-Armies on our side, who will fight our battles for us.