You probably know the story of Esther. King Ahasuerus of Persia had deposed Queen Vashti b/c she wouldn’t come to his drunken feast to display his beauty for all to see. Beautiful women out of 127 provinces were auditioned for the king and Esther, a Jew, was chosen to be the next queen. Haman was the king’s head minister and all were commanded to bow down to him. Mordecai, also a Jew and a cousin to Esther, would not bow down to him (he said that he would only bow to his god, Yahweh) and Haman was filled with rage, not only against Haman, but also against all the Jews for Haman was a Jew. Haman offered to pay into the king’s treasuries 10,000 talents of silver if he would issued an edict to kill all the Jews on a certain date, and the king did so. Mordecai heard about the decree and sent word to Esther, asking her to go before the king and beg him to spare the Jews (including Mordecai and Esther). Esther sent word to Mordecai that there was a law that anyone who approached the king without being summoned would be killed, even the queen herself, and that she had not been summoned to the king for the last 30 days, indicating that she was not in particularly close contact with the king at the time. Here is Mordecai’s reply to Esther. Esther 4:¹³ Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you keep silent at this time, liberation and rescue will arise for the Jews from another place, and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” Esther did decide to go to the king and was graciously accepted by him. He offered to grant any wish she had. She asked for the king and Haman to attend a banquet she prepared. They did. She asked them to attend a 2nd banquet (I don’t know why it took 2 banquets). They came. She then revealed to the king that she was a Jews and Haman’s plot to kill all her people. The king was enraged with Haman. As Haman was begging Esther to spare him, the king accused Haman of assaulting the queen and ordered him to be hung. They hung him on gallows 50 cubits (75 feet) high that he had prepared to hang Mordecai on. The king could not retract the decree to kill all the Jews, so he issued another decree that the Jews could defend themselves on that day. The Jews did defend themselves on the set date and killed many of their enemies and Haman’s 10 sons were hanged. The Jews celebrated a feast for the victory, which then became the yearly feast of Purim. The Jews still celebrate still celebrate Purim every year, often with a Purim play re-enacting the events of the book of Esther (including booing Haman). The king promoted Mordecai to 2nd in the kingdom.

Back to what Mordecai told Esther: 4:¹³ Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you keep silent at this time, liberation and rescue will arise for the Jews from another place, and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” The phrase “who knows” is interesting. To our knowledge, God had not told Mordecai that Esther was to be the one to save the Jews. As a matter of fact, the name of God is not used in the entire book, which almost kept the book from being accepted into the Jewish Old Testament canon. Surely Mordecai would have said, “Esther, God told me to tell you to go beg the king to save the Jews” if God had told him that. Instead, he said “who knows?”. Mordecai is using his own prayerful reasoning in this situation but apparently he himself wasn’t sure what God’s plan was to save the Jews. He told Esther that if she didn’t go beg the king that rescue of the Jews would arise another way not even involving the queen. But he threw out the possibility to Esther that perhaps she had been chosen to become queen just for this moment to save the Jews.

Mordecai obviously had a lot of confidence in the providence of God, the unseen working of the hand of God, even though he wasn’t sure what God’s plan was. I find all this interesting b/c I believe that usually we are in that same situation. We usually don’t get a voice from God (though some might) telling us what His plan is and what our part in the plan should be. We use our own reasoning to assess the possibilities involved, and decide to act upon our assessment of the situation, trusting in God’s providence to use us to work out His plan. We are open to changing our assessment and going in a different direction (just like Mordecai was) if it appears that our plan wasn’t God’s plan.

So how do we know if our plan is God’s plan? How do we know what God wants us to do to work out His plan? How do we know God’s plan even is? Most of the time, I don’t think we do know. We know God’s big plan, i.e. God “wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). But we don’t usually know the specifics of His big plan. Does He want me to work with a certain person to convert them to Jesus? Does he want me to go into a foreign mission field (a decision my wife and I made back in the 70’s)? Does he want me to get involved in a particular ministry helping the poor? Which job does He want me to accept? Who does He want me to marry? What church should we go to? Maybe you hear the voice of God giving you special instructions, but I don’t and I don’t believe that we have prophets that give us such instructions as in the Bible times. So we are left to a lot of reasoning, just as Mordecai was, although we do have the completed word of God to guide us. But I do believe that if we trust in God’s providence that He will providentially let us know that we are doing what He wants us to do, or not. We look for signs, but we are also careful not to just look for signs that confirm our reasoning but to also look for signs that discourage our reasoning. I do believe that, the closer we are to God, the better the odds are that whatever we choose will be in harmony with God’s plans for us. It is called “discernment”.

Some might think that we don’t even have to try to think of a plan to help do God’s plan. When William Carey, the father of Protestant Missions, decided on a plan for the churches in England to take the gospel to the heathen in India, the church preachers said there was no need to do that, that if the Holy Spirit wanted that done then the Holy Spirit would do it without British church help! Carey ignored them and took the gospel to India, mainly translating the Bible into the Indian languages, resulting in the conversion of hundreds of thousands. So we can think of a plan to do God’s plan, then act on it. Trust the providence of God that He will steer you in a different direction if need be. Or He might even go with your plan and change His plan due to your faith and initiative. But mainly trust in the providence of God.

Do you look at every moment of every day to see what God might be doing and if you can fit into His plans? A great verse to close with. Philippians 2:¹² So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³ for it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure.”

I am watching all the seasons of Castle on Amazon Prime. It’s one of those TV series, like Murdock’s Mysteries, where there is a constant romantic suggestion building between the male and female stars (Beckett and Castle). But the writers are brilliant. Castle is always coming up with crazy possibilities for solving crimes, but he always says “there is no such thing as ‘coincidence'” when looking at events in a crime. The events are always connected. The key to solving the crime is to find what the connection is.

That got me thinking about “coincidences” in life. A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection. I was waiting for service on my car. I was trying to get hot water out of the machine. I pressed all the right buttons, or so I thought, and I got cold water. This Mexican lady and her husband were seated nearby. She saw my dilemma and stepped over, pushed the same buttons (or so I thought) and bingo, hot water for my tea. She sat down at a nearby table. I thanked her and waited a moment to see if she seemed to want any kind of conversation. She initiated the conversation and we talked for 30 minutes. Her husband is a cook and doesn’t speak English well. She is from Mexico and has been in the U.S. for 21 years. She has 4 kids. We talked about my missionary experiences in Colombia, South America. They attend a Spanish speaking church nearby. I plan to visit that church tomorrow. Maybe my random meeting with that lady might have some purpose in God’s plans.

I don’t believe that every single event in life is necessarily a part of some predetermined plan of God. But I firmly believe that we can use every event or circumstance to do His will.” God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 2:4) Paul said “¹³ for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13).

Mordecai told Esther to go ask the king to stop Haman’s plan to kill all the Jews. Esther sent word to Mordecai: Esther 4:¹¹ “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.” ¹² And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. ¹³ Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Saying “who knows” indicates to me that Mordecai did not have some direct revelation from God to tell Esther to go to the king. He is saying that she is in a special position as queen to perhaps save the Jews, and that maybe God put her there just for that situation. The whole choosing of a new queen and Esther, a Jew, becoming the new queen out of 128 provinces of beautiful women was part of God of God’s providence, but it still had a lot of moving parts to it. Parts that depended on the free will of people. Esther could choose to go into the king or not. The king could choose to kill her if she came to him, or not (he chose not to kill her). The king could chose to save the Jews once Esther told him about Haman’s plat, or not. But let’s be clear. Mordecai told Esther, “For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish.” If God wants something done, He will find someone who will choose to be a part of God’s working.

So that’s my take on coincidences. We should view every event or circumstance in our lives as a possible part of God’s plan to save souls. We should try to figure out how God might be using us to do HIs will. It’s called “possibility thinking”. “Possibility thinking requires both imagining what is not there and creating paths to it, so that it can become a reality.  Possibility Thinking is the willingness to see possibilities everywhere instead of limitations.”