Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 181 · June 30
The Book Of Records
“On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king.”
Late one night in the Persian palace, a lamp is lit and a servant is called to read the government records out loud, because the king cannot sleep.
The verse says it simply: "On that night could not the king sleep." The book of Esther never once names God in all its ten chapters, and it gives no reason for the king's sleepless night either. Instead, it sets events in order and lets you see what the order shows.
What gets read out is old business. "Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s chamberlains," who had plotted to kill the king. Mordecai's warning had been written in the record years before and then forgotten. So the king asks the obvious question: "What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this?" His servants answer, "There is nothing done for him." An unpaid debt had come to light in the middle of the night.
At that very hour Haman arrives in the outer court of the palace. He has come to ask the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows he has built. Before he can ask, the king asks him what should be done for the man the king delights to honour. Haman assumes the king means him, and he makes a list: "Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head." Then he says how it should be done. One of "the king’s most noble princes" is to dress the man, lead him on the horse "through the street of the city," and "proclaim before him."
Look at Haman's list again, because it shows what was in his heart. He asks for no money, no land and no position. Every item is borrowed from the king, and every item is about being seen. Then the king hands Haman his own list and sends him to do all of it for Mordecai. So Haman becomes the noble prince walking in front of the horse, calling out the very honour he had planned for himself.
Here is something to do. Write down, item by item, the last thing you wanted so badly that you pictured it in detail, the way Haman did. It will show you what your heart has been reaching for, and nobody else has to read it. Then remember Mordecai, whose faithful deed lay forgotten in the records for years. God had not forgotten it, and nothing done faithfully for Him is ever lost from His sight.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 181 is Hold Fast Without Wavering (Hebrews 10:23).