Esther 4:12-14 - If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. What's more, who can say but that you have been elevated to the palace for just such a time as this?"
I have heard this passage preached many times in my life. The preacher has asked, "What place has God put you in to do his work?" I think it is a fair question to ask after reading Mordecai's response to Esther's refusal to assist in the deliverance of her people.
However as I was reading it today I was taken by the sentence before that oft preached passage about "such a time as this." When Mordecai holds onto his faith that, "deliverance for the Jews will arise from some other place." Now that kind of faith humbles me.
It is easy to ask the question "What does God need me to being doing at this place in my life?" Since that appeals to my pride, and gives me a sense that I fill a void in God's grand design. Mordecai though has no void in his admonition to Esther. He understands that God's agenda is far above what I can participate in. God's agenda, the salvation and redemption of his people, is unaffected by my meager efforts to be a piece of it. God's agenda will be accomplished at large despite my participation either for against his efforts.
Mordecai's words to Esther and to me are, "You can be a part of what God is doing, not because God needs you, instead because God invites you alongside him" I desire to have the humilty to accept that my work, my part in God's plan is given to me only out of his grace to me. I think that when I embrace the humilty to not feel God needs my efforts, then I become free to simply love and serve God and love and serve people without an agenda.
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