February 23, 2020 | Esther 8:1–8 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue A “reversal of fortune” happens in a story when a character’s circumstance changes so dramatically it becomes the exact opposite of what it had been. The book of Esther is full of these examples, and today we find a few more. For if, while we […]
A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE February 22, 2020 | Esther 7:5–10 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue The idiom “stuck between a rock and a hard place” can be traced back to Homer’s epic poem Odyssey, in which Odysseus must pass between Scylla, a cliff-dwelling monster (the rock), and Charybdis, a treacherous whirlpool (the hard place). […]
POETIC JUSTICE February 20, 2020 | Esther 6:10–14 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue In the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, Mr. Bumble is the cruel manager of the workhouse where Oliver is raised. Mr. Bumble marries Mrs. Corney, the matron of the establishment, who is just as tyrannical. But, in a twist of fate, the Bumbles […]
February 19, 2020 | Esther 6:4–9 This Month’s Issue According to a recent study, fame is now the number one goal of preteens. “Being famous” catapulted from sixteenth place all the way to first, leap-frogging over long-standing life goals such as having a family, working a good job, or living in community. The researchers connect […]
A SEEMINGLY ORDINARY EXPERIENCE February 18, 2020 | Esther 6:1–3 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue I met my husband in the cafeteria at Moody Bible Institute one September afternoon in 1998. I was a new faculty member. He was a new graduate student. That day, I made the seemingly ordinary decision to eat lunch in a […]
HOW PRIDE BLINDS February 17, 2020 | Esther 5:9b–14 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue If you were to name the “Top Ten Egotists of All Time,” whom would you include? One such list features Billy the Kid, one of the most lethal men in the Wild West, and John Wilkes Booth, the stage actor who shot […]
WHY DELAY? February 16, 2020 | Esther 5:5b–9a DEVOTION This Month’s Issue According to one newspaper report, Americans spend roughly 37 billion hours waiting in lines each year. Researchers added: We are far more satisfied with our “queuing experience” when we have something to do while we wait. We prefer forward movement toward our goal—rather […]
CHARACTER TRANSFORMED February 15, 2020 | Esther 5:1–5 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Don’t you love it when a character finally learns an important lesson and changes for the better? This transformation, in literature, is called the “character arc”—the way in which the main character develops and grows as a result of the story’s conflict. And […]
AN ACTIVE AGENT February 14, 2020 | Esther 4:15–17 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Have you ever floated down a lazy river, drifting along with the current? Sometimes our lives can be like that. We go with the flow, choosing comfort over obedience. It can be easier to take the path of least resistance, to just […]
DEFINING MOMENTS February 13, 2020 | Esther 4:6–14 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue In March of 2009, my husband Peter and I received phone calls from two different friends, who were each telling us about “a seven-month-old baby boy coming up for adoption.” This baby was first entering the foster care system, and if we decided […]