This morning, a friend liked an old post I made on the Book of Esther a few years ago, and so it got me thinking again about the story of Esther. From childhood I always loved this story and enjoyed wearing costumes and going to the synagogue to hear the story of brave queen Esther read (but most of all I loved yelled and making noise whenever Haman’s name was read).

But Wwhat stands out to me now in a way that did not stand out to me as a child, or even a few years ago is the sovereignty and providence of God displayed in the whole story. The wicked Haman plans and schemes to destroy God’s covenant people, but God has orchestrated events so that destruction and weeping turn to triumph and joy.

One remarkable thing about the book of Esther is that God’s name is never mentioned. There are no prophets, no overt miracles, no burning bushes or parted seas. Yet His fingerprints are everywhere. The coincidences are too perfect to be random: the fall of Queen Vashti, the rise of Esther, the sleepless night that leads the king to read the chronicles of his kingdom, and the exact passage about Mordecai’s earlier act of loyalty. God is in those details and in so many others. Solomon spoke truly when he declared, “A king’s heart is like a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he directs it wherever he pleases.” (Proverbs 21:1). His name may be hidden, but His hand is unmistakable.

Everyone knows Mordechi’s famous line to Esther: “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” But what struck me as I revisited the story is what Mordecai says just before that:

“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish.”
— Esther 4:14

Mordecai is absolutely confident that God will orchestrate deliverance for His people. He urges Esther to step forward and play the role God has appointed for her — but he does so from a position of conviction that God is ultimately in charge of human history. That’s not fatalism; that’s faith. He knows that even if Esther falters, God’s promises will not fail.

Mordecai’s confidence echoes the great confession of Job: “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). It’s the same confidence Paul expresses when he writes that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). God’s will is not fragile; it’s unstoppable.

The number of things that God orchestrated in Esther’s story is incredible — and all of it points us to the ultimate reversal of fortune in redemptive history: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Satan schemed. The nations raged. The religious leaders plotted. But God turned what looked like defeat into victory. The cruel cross became the instrument of salvation.

As Peter explained, they acted out of the wickedness of their hearts, but they unwittingly “carried out what [God’s] hand and will had decided beforehand would happen” (Acts 4:27–28). The gallows that Haman built for Mordecai became his own undoing; in the same way, the cross built for Christ became the place where Satan’s power was broken forever.

The story of Esther is a story of reversals — sorrow turned to gladness, mourning to dancing, death to deliverance. And that pattern finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus.

If God could work through a Persian queen and a sleepless king, through banquets and royal edicts, and even through the betrayal and crucifixion of His Son, then surely He is also at work in my life — weaving redemption from threads I can’t yet understand.

I declare with the Psalmist: ““Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases.” — Psalm 115:3

I am grateful to worship a sovereign God who is in charge of the destiny of nations and also in charge of my salvation. Becuase I can see how he turned Haman’s plot into the Jewish people’s deliverance and the cross into the resurrection, I can also have confidence that he is using even the dark or confusing parts of my story for His glory and my good.