“And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
Esther 4:14
Esther did not ask for her position. She was an orphan, raised in exile, living in a foreign palace as one of many wives to a king who did not know her people or her God. Then came the edict: her people would be destroyed. And suddenly her location, her access, her very invisibility became the only thing standing between her nation and annihilation.
The question her cousin Mordecai posed to her was not gentle: who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? It was not a comfort. It was a mirror held up to show her that her life had been leading somewhere. That the lonely path she had walked, the circumstances she had not chosen, the position she had not sought, had positioned her exactly where courage would be required.
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is not a person who has never trembled before an impossible task. Courage is a person who sees that they are standing in the exact place where their fear meets their responsibility, and who moves anyway. The Lord does not promise that the path will be safe or that the outcome is certain. He promises to be present in it, to strengthen and uphold, to be the light that steadies the next step forward.
You may not feel ready. You may not have chosen this moment. But you are here, and the thing that only you can do is waiting to be done by you. That is not burden alone. That is also calling.
Heart Takeaway
Notice one place where your circumstances and someone else's need intersect. Ask yourself what courage looks like if you moved toward it rather than away.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
