What I desperately needed was not to preach to myself, but to listen to a preacher—not to take myself in hand, but to be taken in the hands of the Almighty.
Just like for Mordecai and Esther, our lives are also sustained by the hand of God in the ordinary, in events begging to be seen as the work of Christ in our lives.
When we forget that we live by promise, that's when the danger tends to creep in. Because failing to embrace promise means we usually fall back into notions of luck, or even worse--into works.
In the midst of our worship, God admonishes us to remember His goodness, and don't harden our hearts like our ancestors when they forgot God in the wilderness.
The answer to our messages is God's "yes," Jesus, who sends his preachers to proclaim that there's no place for us now other than in the grip of our God and Savior.