I’m sure you all have heard something similar to the phrase “Life is a journey, not a destination.” We like it, we like how it sounds, we like how it makes a poignant meme, we like to console with it…I have a feeling, however, that there are times we do not like to remember it.
I like to come back to the Biblical story of Esther, found in the book with that same title. I’ve personally done studies on the Book, the person, the common-place biblical heroine who became a princess. Ever-so-many parallels can be drawn from it. But this thought has been coming back up recently that I thought I should share.
It is hard to imagine someone who does not know this story; it’s what fairy-tails are made of. Orphan gets picked as a queen and saves her people. But this is the ‘destination’ view of this story. Let’s look at the ‘journey.’ And realize that we commonly do the same as our sweet Esther. And what is that? We think we are at a destination and settle in…and forget that we are simply still journeying.
Why do I say this? Esther’s cousin has sent a message to the Queen, their people are being faced with absolute genocide. “He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation…and he told him to urge her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.” Esther 4:8 What is Esther’s response? In verse 11 it says “‘All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold scepter to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.'”
What is Esther saying here? After the spectacular way that she was chosen to be queen, in what seemed to be an endpoint, her life had fallen into a routine of luxury and comfort. Ta-daa, God has taken you and lifted you up from the sad and unfortunate life where you were a nobody and now you are a somebody. What a pretty picture! We see this all the time today. How often do we see this story portrayed in television shows and movies where the down-on-their-luck individual / family is swept up by a sensational story and show host or kind-hearted soul and they are gifted ‘unexpected’ riches and everyone is clapping the giver on the back and the recipients are tearful and hugging?
I’m not blaming Esther…I’m simply normalizing her response. She was ‘there.’ She had arrived. “God has led me to this place.” And all the more because, what her powerful cousin was proposing, would very probably take her OUT of this place, where God had put her, and she would no longer be useful to God! It went against all her training to get to this place. It was unreasonable. It was wasting her talents. It was wasteful of her time and “God doesn’t make mistakes.” It was against the rules. It was dangerous. Just. No. God led ME here, I would be the one to know better. No.
But Mordecai, the gate keeper, opposes the QUEEN with this message. Esther 4:13. “‘Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance…will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish.'” Wow. Queen…Christian…do not think that just because God put you in this position…that you have ‘arrived’… that He will not take you out of it if you do not fulfill the purpose (the Journey) He has for you right here. He is looking to see if you Trust Him…if you will be Brave Enough…to see that Destination turn into a Journey….if God so ordains.
And then Mordecai says the words which echoed forward into history and nearly every young woman has had whispered in her heart and can speak from memory.
“‘And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?'”
Esther 4:14
O Christian…do you trust God to take the ‘future’ you thought He’d given you, and turn it into simply a ‘waypoint’ in this Journey? It may seem senseless. It may seem counterintuitive. It may feel backwards. It may even be dangerous. But what IS the Destination anyway? It has been, is, and always will be, a life with no end walking with our God. Everything else…is just part of the Journey. And God using us as the brave spokesperson…to save HIS PEOPLE.
And…if IT IS DANGEROUS…if we do have to walk before the King…if we do have to face ridicule….if we do have to go against the crowd…if we must face certain destruction…may we remember that God promises to be WITH US during the Journey. After 3 days of fasting and prayer, this brave Esther DID, of course, walk towards her likely and (would seem) untimely death in order to fulfill her God’s true reason for her being in that palace…had her life miraculously spared, and DID go down in history as a woman who saved her people. She is one of two women who had an entire book in the Bible dedicated to her. For trusting. And showing us the grace and courage to change a Destination into a Journey.
Not too many years before the lovely Queen Esther made her stand, three men of God dared to defy the edicts of a most powerful king. They, also, were threatened with certain death. Their response was spectacular. Daniel 3:10 “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of god you have set up.'” And when these men were bound and thrown into the insanely hot furnace, God Himself joined them IN THE FIRE. The King pronounced in amazement “‘Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.'” Daniel 3:25
This song came to mind when I composed this. It’s fitting. Don’t be afraid. In this Journey, if God has put you Here, He will be with you. Even in the Fire.
