Bibledoorajar appreciates Esther's Dilemma

      DOES JESUS CARE?

Does Jesus care when my heart is pained.

Too deeply for mirth or song. As the burdens

press and the cares distress, And the way

grows weary and long.

Oh, yes, He cares, I know He cares!

His heart is touched with my grief.

When the days are weary, 

the long nights dreary, I know my

Savior cares.

Frank E. Graeff

Esther had participated in all the appropriate beauty treatments and had won the position of Queen. She had accepted the king's power, his authority and she had relinquished her will to his. But to go before the King in biblical times without being summoned often meant being executed. Her agonizing decision stood before her. She would surely bow before the king's scepter, but it had not been extended to her in thirty days. Mordecai had done his part and now he was encouraging her to do hers even though he admitted that as a Jewess she was vulnerable too. Would Esther forever be known just for her great beauty or would she also be known for being completely obedient to her adoptive father? Mordecai challenged Esther. She should not think that her people would live just because she was Queen. If she did nothing, Mordecai said evil would enlarge against her people such that they could not survive without God's help. Though Mordecai thoroughly believed that God would help His people another way if Esther did not help, he challenged her with this powerful thought.

"Who knows whether you have come to the Kingdom 

for such a time as this?"

     In other words, Esther must remember that God puts in place His will and it supersedes decrees made by earthy kings. If He was summoning her to do His will, Mordecai called for heroism. (Remember when God SUMMONED Cyrus of Persia and told him he had been selected before birth to do God's will in the world? See Isaiah 45: 1 ff.)

     Jesus has done and is doing His part. Could God have placed you in the Kingdom for such a time as this? If you are burdened too much for mirth or song, Jesus cares, but He is also calling for heroism. We have been summoned to serve. How are we doing? Maybe we need to make a plan. Esther did.