In the book of Esther, Haman plots to kill Mordecai and then wipe out the Jews; God turns that plan on its head, as the king has Haman hung on the gallows prepared for Mordecai, and the Jews win a great victory over their foes. Even more importantly in the storyline of Scripture, God saves the line of Jesus, the Messiah by destroying those who would kill His ancestors.

But when Mordecai refused to bow down before Haman, and when Esther approached the king without being summoned, neither knew what would happen. Both took dangerous actions that could have led to their imprisonment or death.

The Apostle Paul assures us that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). All things. He causes our efforts to work for good; He causes the evil acts of evil men like Haman to work for good. He causes your struggles and trials to work for good – sometimes in ways you can see in retrospect, oftentimes in ways you will not see until eternity.

God informs us of that truth – and He graciously gives us examples in Scripture to show us what that looks like. Here are a few more of the many reversals in Scripture:

• Joseph’s jealous brothers sell him into slavery, but God raises him to a position of power over those brothers – and Joseph’s leadership saves those very brothers, the entire line of the promise to Abraham, from dying in the famine (Genesis 37-50).
• Pharaoh refuses to comply with God’s command through Moses and Aaron to let the Israelites go to worship Him; God sends plagues and so works in Pharaoh’s heart that the Israelites end up leaving with abundant silver and gold, the Egyptian army is destroyed, and God’s Name is proclaimed in all the earth (Exodus 5-14; see especially Exodus 9:13-16).
• A young shepherd boy armed with a sling and a few stones has no chance in single combat with a giant, experienced warrior, but God gives the giant into David’s hand so that “all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel … [and that] the battle is the Lord’s.” (1 Samuel 17:46-47).
• The most powerful army in the world comes to attack the Kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem. King Hezekiah acknowledges that he cannot defeat them, but prays that God would save them “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone” (2 Kings 19:19). God kills 180,000 soldiers in their sleep and the Assyrians retreat.
• After centuries of warnings and prophecies about what will happen if the Israelites continue to rebel against Him, God sends the Babylonians to destroy the Kingdom of Judah and the very temple that pictures God’s presence with His people. The siege and its aftermath are horrible – read the poetic accounts in the book of Lamentations. Yet, as God assures Habakkuk after telling the prophet ahead of time that this will happen, the end result will be that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).
• Or think of the Fall itself: Adam and Eve reject God, choosing to trust in their own senses and to believe Satan’s lie instead of relying on the one who created them, who loved them, who provided everything for them (Genesis 3). Many millennia of tragedy follow, to the present day. Yet a time is coming when there will be “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages … crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9-10).
• And all this comes about because of the greatest reversal of them all: Jesus – the only man ever to live a sinless life – is tried in a kangaroo court, sentenced to death, mocked, beaten, and hung on a cross where He dies. Evil and cowardly men bring this about. Yet God through that death pays the penalty for the sins of all those who trust in Him, and raises Him from the dead, “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).

Add to this list others you can think of in Scripture. Meditate on these reversals – and on the God who brings them about. Think of the ways God has effected similar reversals in your life, and in the lives of those you know. And consider your own present trials, difficulties, pressures, and sorrows – knowing that God is working in ways you cannot fathom to bring about obvious or subtle reversals, so that every pain becomes a means of bringing glory to His Name and good to His people.