"For Such A Time As This"

I have mentioned, on several occasions, how God chose common and unlikely people to rise to greatness and be awarded a place of honor in the canon of His holy word. Moses was in the field tending sheep for his father-in-law when he was called out of the burning bush to lead Israel from Egyptian slavery to the freedom of the Promised Land. Samuel was born to a common woman who thought she'd never have a child, but she promised God that if He'd give her a son that she'd give him back to Him. Samuel spent his whole life serving God faithfully. Daniel was just a teenage boy who was taken into slavery by the army of Nebuchadnezzar and carried away into Babylonian captivity. God used him to be a light in a dark place and to show the power of God to pagan people.

Esther was another such individual. She was born into slavery sometime the beginning of the Medo-Persian Empire, and yet she was chosen and put into a position in which she would save the entire of her countrymen through stepping up and doing God's bidding. She was thrust, probably unwillingly, into the throne room of King Ahasuerus (king of the Medo-Persian Empire), a position that I am quite sure she did not desire. She had been raised by her cousin, Mordecai, and taught to always rise to the occasion of "right" and shun any thoughts of "wrong."

We can learn, from the story of Esther, that our Christian life is a faith walk. Paul said to the Corinthian brethren, "...we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). We cannot always "see" the end result of what God is doing in our lives, the lives of our family or friends, or in our church congregation. We must step out in the faith that "...we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28).

Are you willing to let go and let God guide your daily steps and your future destiny? It is clear, from the story of Esther, that if we do not conduct ourselves according to God's will, in the problems that we must solve and the decisions that we must make, there will be drastic consequences for it. But if we do rise to every occasion that God places before us, and act according to His will, we will be richly blessed, in this life and in the next life.