Repentance opens the door

I’m doing some reading in Esther. Someone gave me a book about Esther that I started to read but then realized it was NOT something I wanted to study. Beware the books that masquerade as holy teaching! After deciding this was NOT something I wanted to focus on, I decided to just study the scripture and see what it had to teach me. By the time I got to Esther 4:14, I had studied about the properties of myrrh, political practices of the time, and the almost casual racism that was endemic to the area.

Now we get to Esther. This young girl has been positioned to make a difference for God’s chosen people. She has been crowned queen because she was, to quote a fairy tale, “the fairest in the land,” and has found favor with the king.

What she doesn’t know is that a man named Haman, second only to the king, got ticked off because her uncle-cousin-dad-by-adoption Mordecai refused to bow to him. Instead of disciplining one person, though, Haman (who has wanted to get rid of the Jews anyway) asks the king to let him commit a pogrom on the Jewish people. When Mordecai reads the proclamation, he tears his robes and puts on sackcloth and ashes. Esther sees him and tries to get him to clean up but he refuses. She sends a servant to inquire and finds out about the planned pogrom.

Here she is, a young queen with no power, a secret Jewish identity her husband doesn’t know about, and a real problem. Mordecai wants her to go to the king about it, but there’s this rule – if she approaches him with out being summoned and he doesn’t extend his scepter to her, she dies.

Now we get to Esther 4:14, which we like to quote portions of but don’t really discuss in the whole. “For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14 NKJV.

Mordecai begs her to go to the king. She responds in fear, knowing what will happen if Xerxes (Ahasueras in some versions) doesn’t extend the scepter to her. Mordecai reinforces what she already knows, has been taught from childhood – God WILL save His people. If she refuses to step up, help will come from elsewhere – she and her father’s house will be destroyed, but God’s people will not.

Have you ever had to be goaded to make the right decision? I am certain that Esther feared the king’s wrath, but she knew what was the right thing to do. As she pivoted toward this choice, she asked Mordecai for something she knew to be successful at opening doors for her people in the past. I like to think that those three days of fasting and prayer were spent with a penitent heart, knowing that she had initially reacted to Mordecai’s request selfishly.

The story ends well. Esther goes to the king and he extends the scepter. She is able to avoid a complete massacre of her people, the bad guy gets his comeuppance, and Mordecai becomes a power in the palace. It could have been so different if she had continued in her hubris and disobedience.

When you are shown that your actions and responses are not what God wants from you, how do you respond?

Do you repent and seek His direction as Esther did, or do you become stubborn and willful?

Have you ever asked those around you for the kind of support she requested? How have you seen God’s hand in this type of situation?

Father, I pray that when I am called to be accountable that I will be able to do so without a rebellious spirit. May I be humble and grateful for the grace You show me on a daily basis, and willing to move into what is your perfect will for me.