Asking For The Impossible

Asking for the Impossible

Queen Esther

Read: Esther 8:1-12

“I’ll be sure to pray for you,” Ann promised. after Betty had finished listing her problems.

“A lot of good that will do,” snorted Betty as she walked away. She didn’t put much stock in prayer these days. Prayer didn’t keep my husband from losing his job, or my son from leaving his wife. It didn’t cure my mom’s cancer. It didn’t even get us the asking price for our house. I guess the things I asked God for were just too hard for him.

Queen Esther made a seemingly impossible request of King Xerxes. Haman had issued a decree in the king’s name calling for the total destruction of the Jewish people in the empire. Filled with horror at the prospect of death for herself and her people, Esther begged the king to reverse the order. But according to the law of the Medes and Persians, a royal decree could never be revoked. King Xerxes could, however, sign another decree to offset the first one. The second decree allowed the Jews to come together and destroy their enemies, which protected them from the harmful effects of the first decree without canceling it.

Nothing is impossible for God. Sometimes we don’t get what we ask for because it goes against his purposes or would require him to violate someone’s free will. Before God created the world, he decreed that the penalty for sin would be death. When Adam and Eve disobeyed, God couldn’t revoke that law. But he had a second decree ready. He would become a man and die for the sins of the entire human race. For those who choose to believe, Jesus’ sacrifice offsets the harmful effects of the law of sin and death without revoking it.

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:2 (NKJV)