Reflection
This week’s reading marks a big identity shift for Esther. As she approaches the moment when she will make her request, Mordecai challenges her to step with purpose into her role as queen. To do so, she has to care more about identifying with her people (the Jews) than she cares about her identity as queen. Up to this point, Esther has been given status, wealth, and influence—how easy would it have been to simply maintain that role? Instead, she values her identity as one of God’s people more than she values who she is as queen.
Even though God’s name is not mentioned, once again, he is working behind the scenes by putting Esther in the right place at the right time—that’s why Mordecai says, “Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?”
As believers, we get the opportunity to play a role in what God is doing to establish his Kingdom here on earth. We may not all gain influence and status like Esther, but God often places us in the right place at the right time to create opportunities for us to be faithful. Maybe it’s being a good friend to someone who is going through a hard time, or maybe it’s being helpful in your home when your parents are having a busy week. There are little ways that we can be faithful every day so that when we have to choose our identity as a child of God over the temptations of this world when the stakes are higher, we’ve already developed those muscles. We will be willing to face humiliation and rejection from this world because we know that choosing God is so much better.
- What does faithfulness look like for you on a day-to-day basis?
- In what ways do you need to “reject the world” in order to choose God? (Not being in a certain friend group, breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, confessing to a hidden sin, taking a step of obedience that you’ve been putting o )