When times are hard and confusing, it’s easy for a believer to feel out of place. Most of us have jobs and social circles with barely enough influence to sway a local school board race, much less move the hearts of world leaders as bombs fall. We would love to shake cities and stand before governors like Paul, but we’re more likely to have our name mispronounced at a PTA meeting. We are farmers, teachers, and grocery store clerks; what can we do in the face of war, disease, and a culture bent on screaming its way toward destruction?
In troubling times, it is helpful to turn to the Biblical story of Esther. Esther came to be in a day not so unlike ours. The Jews were threatened with annihilation; a man named Haman had deceived the king into making a law that would end the Jewish people. Through strange circumstances, Esther was in a position to help – a position that God had granted – but it was not a safe one. She was queen of the nation, but if she approached the king in the wrong manner, it could cost her life.
Thus, we read in Esther 4:10-11.
“Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.”
Esther was scared. What will happen to me if I speak up? How can I make a difference when laws and enemies stand in my way? She may have been queen, but much like us, Esther felt helpless to change the circumstances. Esther’s relative, Mordecai, had an answer for Esther and it is one that speaks even to us many thousands of years later:
Est. 4:13-14. “Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14)
It’s easy to see a threat in Mordecai’s words, but they were intended to encourage. God did not make a mistake by putting Esther into a troubling situation; in fact, God had made her for just a time as this. And, once she and the Jews had been saved by her courageous actions, it was easy to see that God was right.
But have you ever considered that Mordecai’s words applied to himself? Certainly, Esther was the one at the front and center, but it was Mordecai’s influence that spurred her on. Without Mordecai, Esther would never have approached the king, and many – if not most – of the Jewish people would have perished.
Perhaps we cannot all be Esther; we are not put into kingship or queendom in our lives. Most of our influence extends to the convenience store’s checkout line. But have we considered that God may have brought us to that checkout line for ‘such a time as this?’ We may never shake kingdoms, but perhaps we can shake individuals, inviting them into a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And it may just be, that we will spur on the next Esther, whose Godly stature and courageous action will shape the direction of an entire nation.
Stafford, Texas