“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).
ow can anything good come from a bad situation that’s gone terribly wrong? It seems contradictory.
But in the Book of Esther, we read a story involving two women—Vashti and Esther. One was the wife of a king, and the other—just a humble little Jewish maiden happy to mind her own business. She never imagined anything great would ever happen in her life. Vashti, the wife of the king, found herself in a very humiliating and degrading situation. Her husband was having a party where the wine was flowing freely, and he summoned her because he wanted to show her off to the others who were more inebriated than sober. She refused to go and remained in her chambers. Her choice to disobey the king cost her everything. How could this situation produce anything but a bad outcome?
It is, however, a story of God’s providence — one of miraculous ulous intervention in which a people and a nation were spared annihilation because Esther put her life on the line.After fasting ing and praying, Esther knew she had to go before the king and plead for her people.The king didn’t even know she was a Jew. She was risking her very life. Esther said, “If I perish, I perish” (4:16).When she entered the throne room, if the king extended his scepter toward her, she was safe. If he didn’t, then she knew it was a death sentence. She knew that death would come anyway if she sat back and did nothing.
“You have come to the kingdom for such a time as this” is a powerful phrase. Although the name of God is never mentioned in the Book of Esther, His influence is found throughout the story. Divine and undeniable evidence that He was at work in and through the life of Esther is clearly seen. For Esther, if something bad had not taken place first, then something good would not have happened later. Had the king’s wife obeyed, there would have been no need for Esther to enter the story. It’s amazing how God integrates His will into unusual circumstances when we trust in Him. Had things not developed this way, no one would have been there to intervene for the Jewish people.
Just as in the life of Esther, sometimes bad things happen in our lives, and we are not exactly sure where God is.We can see only what seems to be the inevitable.We resign ourselves to the fact that absolutely nothing good can come from our situ- ation. But, I assure you, when you look back on your “story,” you will clearly see His handprints and His footprints, just as we see them in Esther’s story.
