Hey, honest question, did it make you a tiny bit uncomfortable yesterday when I jokingly

drew lots at the beginning of our conversation to determine what I was going to do next?

Because it did me a teeny tiny little bit that feels like, well, that's some kind of

forbidden practice. It's divination or leaving something to chance. And, yeah, obviously

that was pretty tongue-in-cheek. Well, I think it was tongue-in-cheek. I don't know what

I would have done if I'd drawn the one with the yellow sticker or not, as I promised.

But theoretically, it was tongue-in-cheek to just illustrate a point. But even that was

enough for me to be like, hmm, yeah, it feels weird. And I kind of raised not to do that

because the Bible looks like is against divination. I mean, like borders on something that's

forbidden, right? But then you actually go and read through the Bible and the practice

of drawing lots, which is what I did yesterday, doesn't look like it is overtly condemned

when it actually happens. In fact, it looks like at times God uses weird things throughout

the biblical narrative to communicate stuff He wanted to communicate or to give people

a sense of direction or certainty within the boundaries of providential decisions that

He's already made and is known since the dawn of time. Is this an overwhelming way to get

started on things? I've taken a little bit of medicine for my cold today. I don't want

it to be overwhelming. But this question that Esther chapter three raises for us, as

Hayman goes and casts the poor, the die as he casts lots to determine what the appointed

time is going to be to take action against the Jewish people. The question that is brought

up by this is one that takes us into the outer realms of thought about the relationship

between reality and time and decisions, that is what happens and a God who is held out

in the Bible, and I think by reason as knowing everything, never having learned anything,

...