Favour, mere coincidence?
One of the operations that the righteous should walk in by default is the favour of God.
Calling favour mere coincidence is pretty demeaning if you are a believer. You should celebrate such occurrences as God’s child and must learn to esteem such as the manifestation of angelic activities.
How do you explain the right time — right place conundrum, and people risking their lives to help you regardless of the consequence?
How do you explain that the forces of time and chance work for you?
Esther had the favour of Eunuch Hegai, the King’s Eunuch who was in charge of the Harem, and she won the favour of everyone who saw her because of this. The Hebrew exiles (Daniel inclusive) had the cooperation of the prince of the Eunuch in Babylon’s court — Ashpenaz. These officials chose to help the aforementioned Bible heroes even if they’d lose their lives.
It is the favour of God that strengthens a man and makes him a voice in the city.
This year, refuse to water down the workings of God in your life.
People think of you to help you yet you don’t know why. That’s the Favour of God.
Explaining away God’s favour isn’t wisdom. This tendency will rub you off bigger things.
Saul was looking for his father’s asses. He had no business meeting the prophet Samuel had the asses of Kish, his father not lost. He had no business in the circumference of the prophets when he indeed prophesy. It’s after feasting with Samuel and his guests, Saul was anointed by the Lord to be prince over his people Israel.
David had no business at the battlelines if Jesse, his father did not send him to his brothers to seek their welfare. Eliab, Jesse’s first son; Abinadab, the second; and the third, Shammah wouldn’t dare the champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, out of the Philistine camp neither would the ranks of Israel. Well, it might interest you to remember that Samuel had previously anointed David and God was working with him behind the scene, in the destruction of the Lion and the bear for the set day.
Jacob was on the run when he came face to face ‘coincidentally’ with the altar his grandfather raised years before his birth. How do you explain the rock he chose to lay his head on among other possible options rock-wise at Bethel was the one his grandfather had sanctified? Holly Molly!
Finally, in Jacob’s experience at Peniel, his running stopped. Well, his rib had been shifted and there was no running to be done anymore as it had been taken out of its socket. He finally began to walk in the reality of his father’s blessings onwards. The change of name experience was Benjamin’s saving grace. His mother, Racheal during the severe labour that led to her death named her last son Ben-Oni, the son of my sorrow.
Had Jacob lost the encounter that allowed for a change of his name, he won’t have had the spiritual sense to change the lad’s name to Benjamin, son of the right hand.
Let’s flip the switch…
When misfortune happens, there will always be a logical explanation.
If you are constantly that one person who encounters misfortunes and you can confirm that it is a pattern, I’d advise you don’t just explain it away. Many have done this in the past, without tackling it head-on, and in most cases, it didn’t end well.
See Job.
Out of nowhere, in the course of one day, Job receives four messages, each bearing separate news that his livestock, servants, and ten children have all died due to marauding invaders or natural catastrophes. He became a shadow of himself but this situation did not last more than three months. He had a latter end that’s far greater (Job 42:7–17). He receives twice the wealth he had before (Job 42:10), plus a new brood of seven sons and three daughters (Job 42:13). But his first children are gone forever, a bad trade by any reckoning. Thus, even though we read that Job’s latter life is blessed “more than his beginning” (Job 42:12), we know there must still be a bittersweet taste in his mouth.
Yes! But he lost his first family…Job does something stunning in the aftermath of his ordeal. He leaves his daughters an inheritance, along with his sons (Job42:15). Leaving an inheritance to female children was unheard of in the Ancient Near East, much as it was illegal in much of Europe right up to modern times. What could have caused Job to take this unprecedented step? Did his sorrow that he could do nothing for his deceased daughters give him the resolve to do everything he could for his living daughters? Was his grief the engine that drove him through the social barriers against women’s equality in this regard? Did his suffering open his heart to others’ suffering? Or were his obstreperous demands to know God’s justice answered by a higher understanding of God’s love for women and men? We cannot know the cause, but we can see the results. If nothing else in this life, the result of our suffering may be others’ liberation.
Follow me closely.
Elimelech marries his wife, Naomi and then famine hits Bethlehem-Judah (Bethlehem means house of bread). How can this be?
It is because of this that Elimelech and his family moved to Moab where their sons, Chilion and Mahlon meet two Moab women — one named Ruth and the other named Orpah.
According to the Jewish Women’s Archive, Ruth (Friendship)is the mother of David; Orpah is the mother of Goliath. We can in typology say that God was trying to reconcile the Jews with the Moabites in a sense. This ancestry dates to Father Lot’s service to Abraham. It is from Ruth that the tree cascades down to Jesus through Boaz. In some way, that’s the way Ruth found her way into the ancestry of Jesus.
Back to where we began, like favour, ill luck and catastrophes can almost always be explained by logic but God is an expert in making great stories out of unfortunate incidence(s).
When the star in their constellation works in your favour, please be grateful to God.
I will share on Laban soon…
Settling for a ☕
Laban and co/Jacob and sons…
Rachel and the sepulchre of her generations.
