When [the king] saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter.

- Esther 5:2

Look at the king’s warm reception of Esther! All of the drama of the previous days bleeds away in this moment. Approaching the king without an invitation always received a death sentence, unless the king extended his gold scepter.

Why did the king pardon Esther?

He could have just been in a good mood, waking up on the right side of the bed. But Esther and her friends had spent the past several days fasting and praying that God would bring about just this very outcome. Could this be a direct answer to prayer?

There’s a tension around prayer.

We’ve seen people who will pray and pray and pray, but when God answers they won’t give him any credit. “That could have just been a coincidence,” they say. “We can’t know for sure that it was God.” No one wants to be foolishly superstitious.

How do we walk in tension between superstition and a cynical refusal to give God credit?