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For Such A Time As This?

 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

          As I think about today’s passage, the original Star Wars movie comes to mind; specifically, the scene in which Obi-Wan Kenobi gets R2D2 to play the message from Princess Leia, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

The thing is, before Mordecai said the words in our passage today, and after Obi -Wan Kenobi invited Luke to go with him to deliver the data, Esther and Luke made excuses. Making excuses is a time-honored tradition. Moses did it. Aaron did it. Gideon did it. King Saul did it.

You were made for such a time as this – and so was I. I have to admit, I’m not necessarily excited about being made for such a time as this. I had some ideas about how I was going to respond to the pandemic, and quite often, feel useless because I’m not risking my life by caring for a COVID-19 patient. That’s not what’s needed where I am. What’s needed is someone to pull weeds. So here I am, with an MBA and technically five published books (two novels, a chapbook of poetry, and 2 family histories) and I’m pulling weeds… for free. I was made for this?

It reminds me of a story told of either Booker T. Washington or George Washington Carver – both of the Tuskegee Institute. He went to a wealthy home to seek a donation for the institute, and the woman who answered the door sent him to chop wood (as I recall.) He did so, and I think he received a small payment and left. Later, they met at a party of some sort, and she was aghast that she had sent such a noteworthy and important man to go chop wood. He dismissed the insult – and received a generous donation.

Moses was a prince, reduced to shepherding. Esther was a queen, reduced to begging. It’s no big deal if I was made for such a time as this when weeds need to be pulled. It’s no big deal…unless I make it so. We can either be what we were made to be for such a time as this, or we can make excuses, and probably still be what we were made to be for such a time as this.

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