{"id":5039,"date":"2023-09-26T18:22:09","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T23:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=5039"},"modified":"2023-09-26T18:22:09","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T23:22:09","slug":"devotional-on-esther-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-esther-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Esther"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-lj9Z3AWJGg4\/XxCtYr2lyLI\/AAAAAAABFhg\/jS-R-6TA-m0tTAqRaEEplMp2qozpiKTBwCPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_20190624_111826.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2019 &#8211; Stratford Hall, Montross, VA &#8211; Potomac River<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nGod\u2019s sense of humor<br \/>\nEsther 6: Haman fled to his house, thoroughly mortified.<br \/>\nIf you like a good story with both drama and comedy, you have to enjoy the Book of Esther. Xerxes, upon reading the journal of his kingdom through a sleepless night discovers Mordecai&#8217;s heroic deed and realizes that Mordecai was never properly rewarded. The next morning as he\u2019s still thinking about this Haman shows up so Xerxes asks for his advice concerning a proper reward for such a great man. Haman immediately assumes that this &#8220;national hero&#8221; he\u2019s being asked about is himself, so he describes an honor that he would thoroughly enjoy: a chance to dress up like the king and be treated as the king. To his horror, Xerxes orders him to do it. However, instead of it being Haman who\u2019s honored, it will be the man Haman hates the most: Mordecai. As I imagine this story being told by Jewish people to one another, I can almost hear the laughter at this unexpected turn of events. The picture of Haman leading the horse and the praise of Mordecai brings a smile to the face even when we\u2019ve read the story many times. No big devotional thought here; just a reminder of God&#8217;s great sense of humor.<br \/>\nTake Away: The Lord delights in turning the tables on situations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God\u2019s sense of humor Esther 6: Haman fled to his house, thoroughly mortified. If you like a good story with both drama and comedy, you have to enjoy the Book of Esther. Xerxes, upon reading the journal of his kingdom through a sleepless night discovers Mordecai&#8217;s heroic deed and realizes that Mordecai was never properly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1492,7],"tags":[123,562,571,1053],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5039"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14696,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039\/revisions\/14696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}