“Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request.’” (Esther 7:3, NIV)
(This post is part of a series on the character of God, based on Exodus 34:6-7).
In our last post on the grace of God, we explored the connection between God’s grace and his willingness to forgive our sins. At the end of that post, I mentioned that there’s a little more to the story (above and beyond the forgiveness of sins) when it comes to understanding God’s grace, especially in its original Ancient Near Eastern cultural context.
And the rest of that story has to do with the fact that for Moses and the Israelites, grace wasn’t an exclusively religious term. It was also the foundational principle of their safety net as a society. This social context of the word grace helps understand one more amazing thing about our gracious God: He’ll always be there for us when we need him.
Finding Favor in Times of Trouble
In today’s world, when a person faces some sort of unexpected crisis, like a natural disaster that destroys their home or a sudden illness that puts them in the hospital, we have things like insurance and various government assistance programs to fall back on. I’m not saying those things always work the way they ought to (or provide as much assistance as is truly needed), but in theory those are there to provide a safety net for vulnerable people.
Things were much different for Moses and the Israelites. If you were an ancient Israelite facing an unexpected crisis, Nationwide wouldn’t be on your side, State Farm wouldn’t be there, and 15 minutes would save you absolutely nothing because modern insurance hadn’t been invented yet.
Instead, you had to turn to friends, family, or the king and pray that you would “find favor” in their eyes, a Hebrew phrase that literally means find grace. I suppose that’s a little bit like setting up a GoFundMe page and hoping for the generous support of friends and family during an unexpected financial crisis.
Here’s how situations like that typically played out:
Crisis — A person is hit with a disaster that is far beyond their ability to deal with on their own. It could be a drought, illness, natural disaster, debt, etc.
Request —The person would go to a friend, family member, or government official who had the power and resources to solve their problem.
Decision — If the person found favor in the eyes of the person they went to, their request would be granted.
Can you think of any stories in the Bible that fit this pattern? There’s actually quite a few, even if the details are slightly different in each case.
Joseph found favor in the eyes of Potiphar, the prison warden, and even Pharaoh himself after he was sold into slavery.
Ruth found favor in the eyes of Boaz when she came to Israel as a foreign widow with no money.
Esther found favor in the eyes of King Xerxes when her people were threatened with annihilation while living in exile.
The common denominator in all of these stories is that you have vulnerable people who are out of options seeking favor from a higher power, someone with the ability to step in to deliver them from danger. And what they are hoping for is that they would find favor (grace) from the right person, at the right time, so the crisis could be averted. Their lives and their future depended on it.
Reflection Question: How does the social custom of “finding favor” affect your view of God’s grace? What does it tell us about God, in addition to his willingness to forgive our sins?
God is not an Angry King or an Absent Father.
Let’s go back to what God meant when he told Moses and the Israelites he was a gracious God (Exodus 34:6). God was saying he’s the kind of God who will look on them with favor when they come to him with their problems.
Keep in mind… when you went to the king to ask for his assistance, there was no guarantee that they would respond favorably to your request. They might say yes, they might say no, and they might be so annoyed by you interrupting them that they punish you to send a message (let’s call that the royal “do not disturb” mode). Just ask Esther—she knew that the king had every right to execute her for coming to him uninvited (see Esther 4:11).
God did not want Israel to think that he was an angry king who would lash out at them or an absent father who would ignore them; he instead chose to reveal himself as a gracious Father who delights in inviting his children into his presence and lavishing them with the blessings they need.
Approaching the Throne of Grace
The writer of Hebrews likely has this Old Testament custom of finding favor in mind when he writes about Jesus, grace, and the throne of God in Hebrews 4:14-16. See if you can pick up on that background in this passage:
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16 (NIV)
The grace of God is revealed in his willingness to forgive our sins, but it’s also on display in his natural inclination to look on us with favor — and step in to help us in our time of need. When you combine the Exodus 34:6 with Hebrews 4:14-16, we learn that God of the Bible is a gracious God who both sits on a throne of grace and gives us grace whenever we come to him for help.
Grace tells us who God is, where God dwells, and what God gives to those who seek him.
My prayer is that you would understand the grace of God more fully and know in your hear that God is delighted when you turn to him for help. And I hope that God’s grace becomes a powerful motivating factor in your life that causes you to trust in him more deeply and follow him more faithfully.
Amen! Et merci! Very timely in our lives. Our Gracious Father has answered your prayer!
I am grateful for the emotional, mental, and physical safety that God provides us.
I will strive to imitate that trait by being a “safe person” for others, standing firm in my convictions, all the while offering compassion toward others in need without judging in the process.