“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 royal position for such a time as this?”
Esther 4:14
There were few circumstances where Esther would have risen to the place and the esteem that she rose to. Had not the events around the royal court of Persia wove the way they had, had not they played out the way that they had, she would have faded into the background amidst the palpably obscure. Her name would have perhaps been soon forgotten with her passing from this world to the next. Yet, during a time of oppression when persecution came so near at hand, God needed a woman of strength and courage, of virtue and valour to carry out the protection of His people against a brutal captivity and a bitter slavery that would claim them as a race and as people.
If one were to ask Esther, she was not the person for the task. There had to be someone stronger, someone more courageous, more devoted in their faith than she was, someone who could take on the weight of the world and not feel it crush them underneath it. She was not the woman that He was looking for, she was not the woman who could deliver her people, and it seemed like a distant concept to her that she ever would be.
Yet, even when Esther didn’t have faith in herself, God had enough faith in her for the both of them. As He had with Moses and Joshua, as He had with David and Solomon, even with all of their flaws and faults, He would mold her into the leader that she needed to be, the leader that He needed for her to be.
And so it is with God...
When God calls on us to rise above situations and circumstances and to be the force for good, the force for His love in a lost and fallen world, He looks beyond who we think we are, the limitations and the restrictions we place on ourselves to the person that He knows we can be. He does so with a divine love that raises us above, uplifting us and making us the right people for the times and the state of affairs that He calls us to. He makes us better, stronger people than we ever hoped to be as His grace is made manifest in our lives and His love is made perfect in our hearts.
Looking to a world where there is captivity and bondage, slavery and genocide, oppression and persecution, poverty and destitution we must realize that though we are called in different ways, we are, as Esther was, still called to work towards an end of suffering and sorrow, to uplift and to edify others before the nations that the sacredness of that which God has created might be seen for the value and the worth that He assigned to it. We may not understand what God intends for us or what He wants us to do, but when we look to the throne of God and the plan that He has, we know that He shall reveal all to us and that He will make His love perfect in us.
Trust therefore in the Lord, never remain silent against injustice, work for the relief and the deliverance of those held in dark estate and know that God has placed you in this world at this time for a reason, for the betterment of others during these trying times of trial amidst this temporal existence. It is then that you will be given the courage and the faith, the hope and the virtue to be more than you ever thought possible as you strive for the cause of His love amidst the liberty that He has promised.
Lord, grant this unto us all....
Let us pray:
Work within us O Lord towards Your cure
That in Your love we may endure
Strengthen us in Your blessings pure
That we may reject the dark allure
And stand in You steadfast and sure.
Work within us O Lord to show Your way
Guard Your children amidst their stay
That in this world’s bitter array
As bondage throws them in the fray
We may see Your blessed dawning day.
Work within us O Lord to set us free
Protect Your people and let them be
The blessed creation to which we see
The manifestation of Your love ably
Moved against all captivity.
Work within us O Lord and we shall sing
Of the blessed Son of our mighty King
Who came in earthly form ransoming
Us that forever shall liberty ring
In the gentle love of Your tender moving.
Amen...
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