Articles
"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]
We often wonder what direction our lives are headed in, especially when we begin to take on different responsibilities. We wonder how God is using us and if we, as little cogs in the machine of God’s big world, are really being used for a specific purpose. Thoughts of doubts arise and fears dismay and we are paralyzed with the persistent questions of purpose and direction.
Esther had been a captive among the remnant of the Babylonian conquest and became, through a mysterious turn of events, a queen! She was married to the infamous Ahasuerus after Queen Vashti’s refusal to present herself as spectacle at the king’s request, which eliminated her influence and displaced her from the throne. Esther had gone through an intensive training regimen and had participated in an ancient beauty pageant. Her life was a whirlwind of confusion, a roller coaster of ups-and-downs and all-arounds. No doubt she wondered what had led her to be where she was. And yet, all of this was working out to the fulfillment of God’s plan. The preservation of the remnant was in the hands of Esther as queen of Persia and as the influential wife of Ahasuerus. Haman plotted to annihilate the Jews, but God put Esther exactly where she needed to be to preserve God’s people.
