Waiting
Her Uncle Mort sent her a note; “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) As she considered this I imagine she thought; “if I speak up I’ll likely lose my privileged position, and they may kill me anyway. Why me? I don’t feel prepared for this”.
A young woman I respect is very intentional in her attention to God’s plan for her life. She’s been asking God for direction on an important choice for some time now. It feels like she’s been listening to the “hold music” for quite a while, so she asked, “how can I experience peace while waiting?” I’d really like to give her some comfort. But, maybe the situation does not require peace; maybe endurance is the needed thing. Peace follows pain. Perhaps all that she has experienced so far has prepared he for such a time as this.
When I have read the phrase “for such a time as this…” over the years I have envisioned the crescendo events of life. Esther before the thrown, Gideon charging into battle against insurmountable odds, David facing down a giant, Joseph leaving prison to become VP of Egypt. But these are not the only times when peace and certainty were needed in their lives. They spent long hours of thinking and praying in seclusion. There were far more days spent waiting for clarity or destiny or freedom. Waiting in anonymity and doubt wondering if God is listening, wondering if the strength to meet the challenge will be when the testing comes.
It seems that God is building strength through the waiting. In it we learn to get neutral, willing to submit to whatever the will of God turns out to be. We learn that we can trust him when we do not understand. We learn to psalm at God, to tell him the truth about what we want and then listen and arrive at contentment. Not happiness but certainly that you’d rather travel a rough road with God than go anywhere without him. This is when conviction develops, the confidence to stand on your belief. First pain, then peace.
The pattern seems to be the same for a psalmist like David, a prophet like Habakkuk, and an apostle like Paul. They tell God of their honest struggles to trust and wait. There is a lonely galvanizing period. There is a fear of abandonment during this time that is borne of the misguided belief that something is wrong. I think this can’t be right because I am in pain. But this is how it works, this is how we grow. Then there is peace that does not fit the situation. The peace comes from the hard fought certainty that both intellect and emotions are being held close in the safest of places. As Paul put it, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:7)
I’m looking at Esther’s situation a bit differently now. I still think she’s a heroine because she faced her fears and did the right thing when it mattered. But I am thinking she had quiet and sometimes lonely times when she felt God was silent. It hurt and she trusted anyway and when it mattered she found that she had a calmness that she could not explain. It did not happen in the time it took to write a Psalm, she had to live it through.
It was God’s plan to save the Jews, but as the passage says he would have accomplished that anyway. Esther got to choose her role in the grand scheme. Part of the plan is to prepare us for the present, be it dramatic or dull. I think the bigger miracle is in the private times that he matures each of us, that he trusts us to choose, and that he weaves all those choices together to accomplish his purpose. Whatever today may hold, just think, everything that has gone before has prepared you for such a time as this.