For such a time as this...

I was reading Esther this past weekend, and came upon the well-known verse, "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)

The more I think about this verse, I realize that it means more than "God has you in a specific place for a specific reason". While this is COMPLETELY true, I have realized that that's not all there is. My Bible has a summary in the beginning of each book and the one for Esther says,

"Silence. Utter, complete silence. We read the pages of Scripture expecting to hear God's voice, but when we turn to the book of Esther, we find only silence. Nowethere in these pages is God's name mentioned. No direct words. No prophesies. No prayers. The nation of Israel was in exile, living in subjection to a pagan king. God was silent, but He was not absent.

It is there, in heaven's stillness, that a young woman enters the scene. Esther is a Jew, but she finds herself upon the stage of the Persian court with all its foreign customs and intrigues. And God has a purpose for her, right where she is. As Esther's story unfolds, watch for God's providence. You will not see His hand, but you can see His fingerprints all over the situation."

I've been going through a phase in my spiritual life and I feel like the Lord has been somewhat silent--I haven't felt His presence, I haven't heard Him clearly, and I haven't seen Him working in huge ways. I have been so frustrated and for this reason, the last sentence of that summary stood out to me. I decided to read through Esther and look for all of God's fingerprints within it.

The fingerprints that were the most obvious to me were the ones covering Esther's life. "Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This girl, who was also known as Esther, was lovely in form and features, and Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died." (Esther 2:7) God created Esther's beauty. He created her with unique beauty that would enthrall the king and allow her to win his favor over every other beautiful girl in the kingdom. He also created her in such a way that she didn't look like a Jew. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but the fact that she was able to hide her identity as a Jew meant that she did not have strong and noticeable Jewish characteristics. God knew the purpose He had for her and created her to fit that purpose. To think that He does that for each of our lives! Psalm 139 says, "My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be." (Psalm 139:15-16)

Now that I have started to see God's fingerprints on Esther's story, I have started to see the choices that Esther made in response to the life she was given. Going back to Esther 4:14, the first part of the verse, "...relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place..." has started to stand out to me. Esther was placed in her position as queen for a purpose, and looking back, we can clearly see what that purpose was. However, I wonder if it was as clear to Esther then as it is to us now. In making her decision to go to the king, her sacrifice was huge, and she could have played it safe. It's interesting that Mordecai was completely confident that God would save the Jews another way. God didn't need Esther to decide to face the king. He graciously offered her an opportunity to take part in His plan. She chose to trust Him and the benefit was hers. She was blessed because of what she did.

This has convicted me in my spiritual life. How many times do I face opportunities in my life for which I am uniquely created? How many times do I refuse the Holy Spirit and miss out on the blessed life that comes by living a life of trusting Him? I want to choose His way over mine--He brings PEACE in my life and that peace makes all the difference in the world to me.