Wednesday, December 21 - Kathryn

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is Esther 3-5, Revelation 13


I have always enjoyed the book of Esther.  Mostly because she was a woman of great strength coming from a difficult situation and put into an equally difficult situation.  Her people had been deported to a pagan land, unable to sacrifice and so far away from home and the things they knew.  Esther was also an orphan, not something well  looked upon.  And, she was beautiful.  She had the cards stacked against her, but the Lord was with her.

I've learned a couple of things from reading Esther:

• She listened to, respected and (I'm unpopular here) obeyed the men around her.  This was both easy and not easy.  Perhaps it was easy to listen to Mordecai because he was a trusted cousin to her.  He had loved her and cared for her in place of her parents.  It was not easy, however, to listen to the heathens around her.  The eunuch placed over her, the King himself.  But in these situations when she listened to and did what they told her to, she was saved.  Mordecai asked her to go before the king, something no one could do unless called (punishable by death), yet she was saved.  
• She wasn't a pushover or timid.  Even though she listened and obeyed the men around her, she voiced her opinion and opposition.  She told Mordecai that hello!  I'm going to die if I go before the king!  Yet she was bold and courageous in going before the king and asking him twice to come to dinner.
• She knew how to work within her God given parameters to get what she needed/wanted.She was not a stupid woman.  She knew the way to endear a man.  She wasn't going to get anywhere stamping her foot and going into a tirade, or even doing things herself.  This is not popular thought today.  Many women are proud to say they need no man.  Yet this isn't scriptural, nor is it smart.  Women have their own power, and don't need to borrow the power that God has given men.  Both men and women were made to need each other in different ways.  

Esther is a great example of how to be effective right where we are at.  To be sure women were not revered or even valued in this culture, but Esther was able to work out God's will for her as a woman in that time.  God is able to use us right where we are at, we just need to be willing and open to His leading.

Tomorrow's passage: Esther 6-8, Revelation 14