Irony

In the literary sense, irony is either the most misunderstood concept or simply the most incorrectly used. Many times, people will use the term "ironic" to describe events that are merely coincidences ("I was thinking about Fred, and ironically, he called me ten minutes later"--that's not irony). One definition I found online for irony is:

Situational irony involves an incongruity between what is expected or intended and what actually occurs.

And believe me, we have a case of situational irony in today's reading.

David's post of today does an excellent job of describing Haman's activities, and I suggest you read it first. After Haman had his audience with Esther and Xerxes and brags to his families and friends of what occurred, we're told in Esther 5:14:

His wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a gallows built, seventy-five feet high, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai hanged on it. Then go with the king to the dinner and be happy.” This suggestion delighted Haman, and he had the gallows built. 

We're all familiar with the phrase "Be careful what you wish for," which for today we can re-purpose as "Be careful what you plan for," because as the events of today's reading proceed, it ends with this unfortunate end for Haman as described in Esther 7:9-10:

Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said, “A gallows seventy-five feet high stands by Haman’s house. He had it made for Mordecai, who spoke up to help the king.” The king said, “Hang him on it!” ¹⁰ So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s fury subsided. 

 Now THAT'S ironic--as events transpired, the plans that Haman had made for Mordecai were instead flipped on him. How often does that happen to us in our lives? We exert tremendous effort in trying to order our lives and plan for all eventualities, and despite our best efforts, there will be times when things not only don't go our way, but go the exact opposite of what we intended. Granted, more often than not, the end result for us won't result in us getting hanged, but it again underscores a theme that seems to be coming out of my mouth and my keyboard with increased frequency--I have nothing against planning, but being prepared will benefit us far greater.

Haman went to great lengths to ensure that his plans were successful--he got the backing of the king, had the money and the armed forces necessary to carry it out and had communicated them throughout the 127 provinces. He had done EVERYTHING, had planned down to the minutest detail how the eradication of the Jews would occur, and it was all for naught--because it wasn't GOD'S plan. My take-home message is a pretty simple one--as we plan our lives, do we spend the time attempting to discern if what we're doing is God's plan? And if the answer to that is "No," what are we going to do about that?

Scott