Esther 4:13-14
Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (ESV)
A beautiful, exiled, orphaned Jewish girl becomes queen of her captor’s kingdom and saves God’s people from destruction. This is the story of Esther. Though God’s name is never used throughout the book, it is a story of his providence from beginning to end. Throughout the book of Esther, we see God sovereignly working in the lives of his people both individually and corporately for his glory and their good.
In this scene, we find Esther alone and afraid, unsure of which fearful path she should take. Should she stay quiet and suffer alongside the people of God? Or should she risk her own life to take their plight before the king? Her uncle Mordecai’s admonition to her is that God, in his sovereignty, has orchestrated all the facets of her life for such a time as this.
It is doubtful that any of us will become the queen today or save a whole nation from destruction. However, God’s providence in our lives is no less real. The work he has called us to do today is no less holy and no less good. Like Esther, so many of us find ourselves in circumstances today that we would not have chosen—places of loneliness and loss, of fear and of fatigue. As school wraps up for us or for our children, we look towards a summer that has much ambiguity. We don’t know what it will look like but for most of us, we will likely live a much slower, more local, more isolated life than we had imagined. Our plans will likely not be ones we would have written, and yet we can trust that just as he did for Esther, God has sovereignly orchestrated all the facets of each of our lives for such a time as this.
The whole of the Scriptures tell the story of God’s sovereign work in the world, how he works all things for his glory and our good. As believers, in the midst of suffering and struggle and uncertainty, we find hope and rest in his providence. We can trust that, in his goodness, he has prepared us for such a time as this, and that in this very particular time is calling us to seek him, to seek joy, and to seek to give ourselves for the good of another.
He is calling us to Seek Him.
I have always loved the account of Paul preaching to the Gentiles in Athens in Acts 17. He tells them of the God who created the world and gives life and breath to all mankind. And then he tells them,
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. (Acts 17: 26-27, ESV)
He has purposely placed each of us in this exact time and place—in the spring of 2020, where and with whom we live, in the neighborhoods we walk or the places we go to work—all of it that we might seek him. And he is actually not far from each one of us. What a comforting promise, what a transforming truth! He is near to his people! He has drawn near to us, in the person of Jesus Christ. He has given us his spirit. Frequently throughout the Scriptures, as God calls and commands us to seek him it comes with the promise that we will find him, and that in finding him we will find all that we really need.
Knowing that God is sovereignly at work in all the circumstances of our lives, and that he can and wants to be found in them enables us then not only to seek him, but also to Seek Joy.
In Psalm 118, the psalmist writes,
This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
These words are probably deeply familiar to many of us. We have sung them since our earliest Sunday School days, and yet how often do we pause to really consider God’s good hand in making each day that lays before us? In her recent book, Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren writes this,
The psalmist declares, ‘This is the day that the Lord has made.’ This one. We wake not to a vague or general mercy from a far-off God. God, in delight and wisdom, has made, named and blessed this average day. What I in my weakness see as another monotonous day in a string of days, God has given as a singular gift.
When Jesus died for his people, he knew me by name in the particularity of this day. Christ didn’t redeem my life theoretically or abstractly—the life I dreamed of living or the life I think I ideally should be living. He knew I’d be in today as it is, in my home where it stands, in my relationships with their specific beauty and brokenness, in my particular sins and struggles.
God, in delight and wisdom, has blessed this day. He has given it as a gift. He is at work in it to redeem me and his people and his world. And therefore, we can rejoice!
I have had so many days during this season that I started out struggling—with everyone fighting at the breakfast table at 7:30 a.m., and then struggled all the way up until we are getting everyone ready for bed at 7:30 p.m. What the psalmist reminds of us here is that even in these days, God is at work. In the days of joy and peace, and in the days of struggle and chaos, God is at work. In the days of respite and rest, in the days in which we cannot put one foot in front of the other, God is at work. Each day, the long and lonely ones, the full and fruitful ones that go by fast, each day is a gift for which we can rejoice and in which we can seek joy.
In such a time as this, God is near and God is at work. These realities comfort us, but they also compel us not to live for ourselves, but to Seek to Give Our Lives Away.
Jeremiah 29 contains the familiar and treasured promise, “For I know the plans I have for you declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” In the context of this passage, God speaks to his people in exile—promising their redemption and his working for their good in all things—even in the darkest of circumstances. In the verses preceding verse 11, God tells them exactly what they should be doing while they await this promised redemption:
But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:7, ESV)
In circumstances they would not have chosen, in a place where and among a people with whom they would rather not be, when plans A, B, C, and D have long passed, God is telling his people that their greatest good is in seeking the good of others. Their flourishing is to be found in giving themselves away.
In these trying times, and particularly as they continue to draw on with great uncertainty, the natural inclination of our hearts is to turn in on ourselves. But God, in his grace, has given us another way- the way of sacrifice, the way of the cross—the way to joy. Jesus has given his life away for us, on the darkest day, in the most crushing circumstance, so that we can give our lives away too.
We have found ourselves in unprecedented times, our security is shaken, our community isolated, our plans postponed—and yet, what if God has brought us here for such a time as this—may we seek him, may we seek joy, and may we seek to give our lives away—all for his glory and for our good!