It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

“Wherein the king granted the Jews which were in every city to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, both little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey,” (Es 8:11 AV)

Have you ever heard the expression, “It has to get worse before it gets better?”  This is what happened with the Jews during Mordecai’s lifetime.  The Jews were under the control of the Medes and Persians.   They were in captivity in a hostile land.  Haman, who was second to Ahasuerus, king of the Medes-Persians, convinced the king to pass a law that would exterminate the Jews.  Upon hearing of Mordecai’s faithfulness while not able to sleep one evening, Ahasuerus honors Mordecai for his faithfulness.  Esther, the Jewish queen reveals to Ahasuerus the designs of Haman to destroy her and her people out of envy towards Mordecai.  Since the law of the Medes-Persians cannot be altered, not even by the king, a new decree went out that gave the Jews the legal right to defend themselves by force.  In the end, it worked out better than it would have had Haman not pushed for the destruction of the Jews to begin with.  Let me explain.

When all was said and done, after two days of skirmishes, 75,000 pagans died at the hand of the Jews.  Many more converted to the Jewish faith and became proselytes.  This undertone of resentment against the Jews existed before Haman’s decree.  All Haman’s decree did was to expose it to the surface.  If there was no decree, then the undertones of resentment, prejudice, and persecution would have continued.  Now, the enemies of God’s people have to declare themselves and be dealt with.  But it took a decree and possible threat to the people of God to do it.  What was at first a bad situation had to get worse before it could get better.  As a pastor I have seen many situations when a soul went into a situation needing health care only to find out there was a potentially much worse situation that needed to be dealt with.  A diagnosis that wouldn’t be caught any other way comes to light as they are treated for something else unrelated.  In my own situation, the routine test performed when you turn fifty revealed a few lesions that had to be removed.  According to statistics, only ten percent of those can become something more serious.  A little temporary discomfort saved me from a far worse future. 

We may think the trials we are going through are unnecessary, but sometimes they are the means for the LORD to deal with something far worse before it becomes a larger problem.  The trouble we face today may bring to the surface something that has the potential of being far worse and because the temporary hardship forces the potentially more serious to the surface, it can be rooted out and overcome.  We may be anxious about what we are facing today.  However, what we are facing today may be the means of resolving something far worse tomorrow.