Destiny
I enjoyed being back to my normal schedule. After an early breakfast meeting, I was able to work out of my home office and get quite a bit of work accomplished. I even got in a “functional workout” with my outside landscaping project.
BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… “…if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14 NCV
I never get tired reading the Book of Esther. What a story! It has drama, intrigue, excitement, irony and through it all we see God behind the scenes working in peoples lives. The entire book is just one story. One story about one chain of events while God’s people we captives in a foreign land. But it is a story that was at the basis of celebration that is still on the Jewish calendar today. God saved His people from annihilation, and that is something to remember and celebrate.
In many ways the story is about Mordecai, Esther’s adoptive father and cousin as much as Esther. It was Mordecai who put Esther in the position to be Queen. He provided counsel and encouragement to her. Mordecai was the one who discovered the assassination plot against the King and saved his life. Mordecai “stood his ground” in not kneeling to the arrogant Haman. It was Mordecai who informed Esther of the plan to kill all the Jews and compelled her to act.
We see Esther was a woman of beauty, dignity, courage and wisdom. When she realized that she needed to act on behalf of the Jews, she called a fast. Not just for others, not just for herself, but for all of God’s people that she could. What she did, she did not do out of presumption or human courage, but she knew she needed the favor of the Lord to have the favor of the King. She needed divine favor with God to have favor with man.
Once she was accepted in to the King’s presence, she did not just blurt out the word about the crisis or her request. She asked the King and Haman to a banquet and then another before she reported to the King what was troubling her. In the end Haman is hanged on the gallows he planned to use to kill Mordecai. The Jews are allow to defend themselves and with the Lord’s help they defeat their enemies.
What is interesting is the word “Purim” means “lots.” Haman cast lots to determine the most suitable day to kill the Jews. But with the Lord there are no chances and there are no plans against Him that will succeed. Proverbs 19:21 says, “You can make many plans, but the LORD’s purpose will prevail.“ (NLT) This certainly applied to Haman and the story of Esther.
But if there is a word that characterizes the Book of Esther, it is “destiny.” Even in captivity God is watching over His people. He is able to have the right people in the right place at the right time. When Mordecai had Esther enter the “Queen competition” he did not realize how that would play out. When the time came he challenged Esther with those well known words, “who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this.”
When we commit our lives to the Lord, we need to believe that He will place us where He wants us to be and use us where we are for His purposes, at just the right time. It might not be as dramatic as Esther, but you never know. Ask yourself, “how does the Lord want to use me, where He has me at this time?” When we do that, prayerfully, we will not just live our life we will be investing our life and yielding our life to God’s higher plan and purpose.