Esther: The Humble Queen (Part Four)
What have you been called by God to do?
Every once in a while, I still get recognized from my television days. Over the weekend, I served on the prayer team at Thelma Well’s Generation Love Conference and two different people remembered me either from my work in San Antonio or on HBO Sports. It’s fun that some people haven’t forgotten me, but my identity is not tied up in television anymore. My passion and calling are in ministry. When people bring up the ol’ sportscasting days, all I want to talk about is how God brought me out of sports television to write about him, rather than report on the latest Spurs or Cowboys game. As I was consumed with my career in sports, I am now even more consumed by the mantle God has placed on my life.
Esther also understand her new calling. She was no longer the orphan Esther. She was now Queen Esther and placed in a position of prominence for a reason and for God’s purposes. She continued to carry herself with humility. When her cousin, Mordecai discovered a conspiracy by two of the King’s officers to assassinate the King, he told Queen Esther, who reported it to the king and the two traitors were impaled on poles. She’s still listening and being obedient.
One day the King decided to honor one of his officials, Haman, and placed him in a position higher than anyone else. He commanded people in his kingdom to kneel down and honor him, but Esther’s cousin, Mordecai, who only worshipped God, would not bow down before the man, Haman. And because of that, Haman had it out for him.
Haman was enraged and would show not only Mordecai, but he would show Mordecai’s people, the Jews, what happens when they don’t honor him, so he went to the king, stretched the truth a little, and said the Jews weren’t obeying the King’s laws. He then talked the king into issuing a decree to destroy the Jewish people. The King agreed, sealed the deal with his signet ring, meaning it could not be taken back. And while the king sat down to enjoy a drink with Haman, the city of Susa where Mordecai and many of the Jews lived, was in an uproar.
Here’s Haman so prideful that he would kill if another person didn’t bow down before him, then on the other end of the spectrum, the Jews are fasting, weeping and wailing in sackcloth and ashes.
Esther, obviously isolated from current events, wondered why her cousin Mordecai was acting so strangely. She sent clothes for him and asked her Eunich, Hathak, to find out what was going on.
Mordecai explained Esther needed to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with King Xerxes for her people but by doing so, Esther risked death. She had not been called into the King’s presence for a month and she risked losing her life by entering the royal chambers without an invitation. That’s when the famous passage is spoken by Mordecai in Esther 4:13:
“Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 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 you royal position for such a time as this?”
Do you believe God has placed you in your current circumstances for a reason?
Do you trust everyone you come into contact with could be a part of God’s plan for your life?
I’ve learned to keep my eyes open and my ears peeled. I don’t want to miss anything God has pre-ordained for my life. Every time I attend a meeting, a luncheon, or board a plane, I pray for divine appointments.
Are you allowing God to use you to reach your world, for such a time as this?
Queen Esther realized being Queen wasn’t about her beauty or the fact the King was attracted to her. He didn’t even call for her anymore. External beauty only goes so far. It was about being used by God to rescue the Jewish people, for such a time as this.
On Saturday, we will conclude our Esther series with Esther’s greatest act of humility.