For Such A Time

                 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?” (Esher 4:14)

                 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

 

                She was a beautiful girl, taken into the king’s home, granted honors not available to anyone else. As we read Mordecai’s warning to her, we can readily see how she was born for such a time as that. But what about me? You know, the one who

Never quite lived up to the news clippings

Is 90 lbs. overweight, or 20 lbs. underweight

Didn’t win the awards

Can’t be called a beauty by any one’s standards

Doesn’t have the king, the president, or anyone powerful on speed dial.

Is called  “Karen” the moment she opens her mouth

                Feel free to add to the list of the nothing-ness and nobody-ness of most of our lives. We are tempted to shrug away any thought that God might have created us for such a time as this, that, or any. But look again at Esther. God created her, in effect, to be a wife who throws two dinner parties. In fact, they are two dinner parties for three people. And they’re even the same three people. The only reason there had to be two parties is that she lost her nerve the first time.

            Don’t get me wrong, I think the world of Esther. I doubt I’d have had the courage. But sometimes, we blow these events up. There’s another story that centers on a man who maintains a prayer discipline. And what about the guy whose place in history is cemented because he was sitting in prison? Or the guy who is famous for how much he suffered?

            As we face the challenge of our difficult – or our boring – circumstances, we might do well to wonder now and again if just maybe we have come into our lives “for such a time as this.” And that thing we're afraid to do is the blessing we're withholding from others.