It’s Not Luck

Proverbs 16:33

The Lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

Esther 9:24

For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, cast lots), to crush and to destroy them.

Just another normal Holiday season, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. All working in synergistic union to provide every delicacy I can remember and a few more new ones. Literally brining the weight of years of joy down onto cold reality of my bathroom scale. Gathering over the Thanksgiving meal, praising God for the blessings he has showered on us over the last year, taking the next month to focus those blessings on the pivotal event in personal and human history, the birth of Christ. Now we come to the New Year. Celebrating the turning of the page and looking forward to, and celebrating, what God will do with us and through us in this next year.

It is no accident that these holidays, or “feast days”, build on one another and, for the Christian, center around Christ. Even as many attempt to make these holidays about family and friends, the Christian knows that we Give Thanks to God, we celebrate Christ, and we have a future only through the sacrifice of Christ. We feast and celebrate Christ in all these things, we join with the elect throughout time to celebrate what he has and will do for us.

The bible reading plan I use to guarantee I do not unwittingly skip any of the counsel of God, came to a conclusion in the book of Esther. The conclusion of the book tells us how the Feast of Purim came to be and what it is celebrating. As the Jews have been given a great victory over their enemies, they do not want to forget what God has done. They head the command of scripture, written over and over, to “remember” and like all of us they need something to remind them. Recognizing that our minds are not what they used to be and that sin often crowds out what God has done, they choose my favorite memory device a party combined with a play on words!

Believing in a sovereign God they do not hold chance to be a possibility. It was not chance that pushed Haman’s date out to the end of the year, nor was it chance that took Esther from her cousin’s home and installed her as queen. Chance and luck to not play a role in the plans of a sovereign God, as the Proverb says “the lot is cast in the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord”. So, the name their holiday in Purim, because God is sovereign even over “luck” and “chance”.

As you look forward to the new year, do not forget to look back at the old. As you look back do not fail to see the hand of God guiding and confounding you. Then do not fail to declare to those who have not heard, what God has done with you, through you, and to you this last year.

“To God be the glory, great things he hath done…”

CRUCE, DUM SPIRO, FIDO