Esther: For Such a Time as This
Esther 4:14-16
For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
World English Bible
Mordecai's words to Esther contain one of the most liberating sentences in the Bible, and it is not the famous one. Before “for such a time as this,” he says this: “If you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place.” Hear what that means. God's purposes do not hang on Esther. He will save His people with her or without her. The only thing actually at stake in Esther's decision is Esther: whether she will be part of what God is doing, or watch it happen from the sidelines of her own safety.
That reframes everything we think about calling. God does not need you; He invites you. The pressure is off, and the privilege is on. Mordecai follows with the question rather than a guarantee: “Who knows if you haven't come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Who knows. Not a vision, not a voice from heaven, just a holy hunch that her position and this crisis had intersected for a reason. Most callings arrive exactly that way: not with certainty, but with a circumstance you happen to be standing closest to.
Watch what Esther does with her fear, because she clearly feels it. She does not deny it or wait for it to pass. She fasts. Three days, night and day, she and her maidens and all the Jews of Susa together. She takes her terror and walks it into the presence of God before she walks into the presence of the king. Courage, it turns out, is not the absence of fear. It is fear that has been fasted over until it surrenders to something bigger.
Then the words that still take our breath: “I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” She releases the outcome. She does not know how the story ends. We do, but she did not. She only knows what faithfulness requires today. Somewhere in your life right now there is a door you are standing closest to, a silence that would be safer, a “who knows” waiting for an answer. The deliverance will come from somewhere. The only question is whether it comes through you.
Reflect
- Where am I staying silent or safe in a situation that I may be positioned in for a reason?
- Do I treat my advantages (position, resources, relationships) as things to protect, or as things I was given for someone else's deliverance?
- What outcome am I gripping so tightly that I cannot say, with Esther, “if I perish, I perish”?
Pray
Ask God to show you the “such a time as this” already present in your life: the place where your position and someone's need intersect. Before you act, do what Esther did: bring your fear to God honestly, and consider fasting over the decision. Then release the outcome to Him, and ask for the courage to walk through the door whether or not you know how the story ends.