The Queen of Beauty and Courage

God has made you for such a day as Today
 
“If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?" Esther 4:14

Today

After the return from Exile beginning in 538 BC, many Jews still remained in Persia (formerly Babylon). Among them was a pretty girl named Esther. She “won a beauty contest” became King Xerxes new Queen, was informed of a plot to exterminate all Persian Jews and called upon to thwart the plot at the risk of her own life. This she did. 

It occurs to me that, yes, she was chosen to be God’s woman at a certain place and in history and  at a certain time in her life. It also occurs to me that each moment of her life leading up to that moment served both to enable that moment to happen AND to witness to God at each and every point along the way as well as to prepare for that moment.    She was beautiful and she was called to use what she had been given as a gift in the service of God.  

It is probably true that you and I are or have been maneuvered by God to be used by Him to accomplish certain specific things. Yet the Bible doesn’t support the idea that we exist only for one moment in time. I can see how God has used me (very non-heroically) at a certain turning point, yet I also know that had He not used me, he would have used someone else (just as today’s verse says). I also know that all other moments of my life have a huge impact on those around me either negatively or positively. If I am faithful with my moments, God’s kingdom is expanded and others are blessed, if I am unfaithful with my moments I’m in God’s way.  

In short, it seems to me that I can wake up each day and say, “today, Lord, You have made and chosen me  for such a day exactly as the one I am about to enter”.  

Prayer 

“Lord, I enter today believing that everything in my life has been training for you to use me for such a day as today, knowing that the relatively small or relatively large things I face today are all important to you and to those involved. You have prepared me for such a time as today. Amen”