Replacing Our 'Who Knows?' with 'He Knows!'

“For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise…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

You don’t have to be steeped in the Bible to have heard this verse before as it is one of the most quoted and eloquent exhortations in the Bible. The danger is that it is so familiar to us it has lost its message in our day…our circumstances…our journey. This was the spiritual pivot point for a little orphan turned queen, a wall flower turned into a beauty and a spiritual weakling turned into a spiritual warrior. All those things hung in the balance of what she could have been and what she became. It overwhelms to think that our lives could boil down to a pivotal moment like Esther’s and a crossroads in fulfilling our spiritual purpose.

We all have spiritual purposes and we cannot kid ourselves thinking that there are not things we are suppose to accomplish in the kingdom of God here on earth. We can bet our bottom dollar that these difficult choices we make honoring God will be either spiritual missteps or spiritual markers. Esther’s tough decision came with the risk of losing everything, and yet she took the risky road instead of the safe road and saved a nation.

What about us? Who knows whether serving in that organization will bring about the salvation of a person who was never exposed to God? Who knows if our decision to change jobs will make lasting improvements and opportunities in our lives and in the lives of others? Who knows if our courage in illness brings a revival in the hearts of many? Life is not a string of random happenings, but rather an orchestrated plan developed by God who holds every detail of our lives in His hand. To answer that question of who knows is to get off the couch and pursue that job. It is to pay for that struggling woman’s groceries ahead of you in line. It is to leave our comfortable homes and put someone outside of our family ahead of our wants and needs. Esther put her own interests and safety aside so that she could see the nation through the eyes of God. She made God-ward decisions instead of self-decisions which changed the entire trajectory of her life. If God is so intentional with our lives, then why aren't we? No nation has ever been saved from the couch, and no spiritual destiny has ever been fulfilled without community.

‘Every giant-size weight drops into our laps right on schedule. None of our purposes will be fulfilled easily. All of them will require the most difficult decisions we think we can make. In the times of greatest struggle when you make the God-ward decision over convenience, earthly comfort, or carnal pleasure, you too have come to the critical moment in the fulfillment of your destiny. ’ The Faithful, Beth Moore, p. 100.