For Such a Time As This...

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

For such a time as this…

I had read this story a thousand times, and yet I felt like I was reading these words for the first time. God put Esther in a place of power so that He could use her in his extraordinary plan of deliverance. He did not NEED her in order to deliver his people, but he allowed her to participate in his extraordinary plan. He put her in the palace for a reason.

God uses us where we are in order to fulfill his plans. There is no in between time. The reason why I say this is because I thought that the time in between the important things in my life were simply times of spiritual relaxation. I thought that high school was just a bridge to college so that I could relax before I was able to do anything important for God. I thought that once I graduated high school I would be thrust into this exciting life where every day was meaningful and purposeful for him. This was very wrong and misguided. I should have treated it as an opportunity to show God’s love to the broken people around me. I could have been using everything to point to God instead of waiting for my journey to begin. It had already begun and God had placed me in that high school with those people for a reason. I was sitting selfishly waiting for things to matter, when they already did.

We have a responsibility to spread his glory. 1st Thessalonians 2:4 says, “but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts” (ESV). We have been ENTRUSTED with his gospel, and so we should speak without shame. Everywhere we go we should be spreading the gospel, through our words and actions. It is so much easier to deaden ourselves with distractions, but it is important to be intentional through everything. God will use our actions for his glory, but we must begin by living every second for him.

Esther had courage in her heart and hope in her unchanging God. God saved his people through her, because he had prepared her for such a time as this.