Thoughts on Esther 1

Today’s reading: Esther 1; Ephesians 3

I personally appreciate the portrait that the book of Esther gives us of how God works through His ordinary people to accomplish His purposes via ordinary means.

A lot of the Old Testament could leave you with the impression that God primarily works through a select group of prophets. Much of the OT storyline follows prophets, judges, or leaders that either speak directly to the Lord or are empowered expressly by the Lord, to accomplish the Lord's specific purposes for them. Given the fact that such people tend to be the focus of stories throughout the Bible, it can be really easy to gloss over the fact that these folks were actually few and far between in the grand scheme of things, and that for many of them, their interactions with God were not a continuous or constant feature. In fact, it seems like Moses was relatively unique in how readily he had direct access to God, and most people we would look to in this category, like Noah, Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, only had a couple direct interactions with the Lord (that we are aware of) and those tended to be spaced years or decades apart.

The easy result of this, for me at least, is to start to elevate these individuals to a kind of unattainable status that let's me excuse my own weaknesses and faithlessness because I'm not having those kinds of direct interactions with God. The other result of this is to start to see God's work as more supernatural or mystical, such that real impact for the Kingdom of God is accomplished via miracles, not day-to-day faithfulness.

The fact of that matter is though that even a prophet as important and impactful as Elijah was a man just like us with a nature just like ours (James 5). God's purposes are not primarily accomplished by grand supernatural interventions into the otherwise stale flow of human history, but by the actions and choices of the ordinary men and women He raises up, by virtue of their interests, talents, and experiences, to accomplish His work.

Esther, as a book, showcases this beautifully.

Throughout Esther, you won't find God overtly operating or acting on behalf of His people, nor will you find Him speaking to Esther or Mordecai to direct them what to do next. Instead, what you will find is a couple of God's people using their wisdom, creativity, position, and opportunities to bring about the salvation of God's people. That isn't to say that God isn't involved behind the scenes, shaping and molding Esther and Mordecai into the people He needs them to be for the purposes He is working out in human history, but to say that Esther and Mordecai wouldn't have been able to see that work He was doing until potentially looking backward on events after they had played out.

And I love this aspect of of book of Esther because this is how God works with us. God shapes and molds us by experiences and opportunities to be able to fill the roles and needs that exist within His broader purposes, and the vast majority of the time, we will not be able to recognize that work until well after He has brought his purpose to fruition through us.

Even someone like Moses, for all his direct access to God, was not prepared for the work God called him to by those interactions, but by being raised in the palace and educated in all the knowledge and ways of the Egyptians for 40 years, and then being a shepherd in the wilderness for another 40 years. It was only after those 80 years that God called him to use his understanding of Egyptian religion and politics to approach Pharaoh to release his people, and then to lead them through the wilderness he was, after 40 years of shepherding, now familiar with. When he fled Egypt and became a shepherd, all that time and education in Egypt probably felt like a waste, and when God sent him back, those 40 years in the wilderness probably seemed like a waste, but both were essential for him to carry out well the role God had for him. So while Moses was someone that God spoke directly to, pointing him in the right direction, most others will be more like Esther and Mordecai, prepared for the time He desires to use them, and then continuing on through it, in faithfulness to Him, not realizing until after the fact that God has prepared and brought them to the moment He has for His specific purposes.