"...and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b)

Mordecai asked his cousin Esther the pointed question above. Clearly, God had placed Esther into a position of power. She had become the queen of the Persian empire and wife of king Ahasuerus, perhaps the most powerful man alive at the time. Queen Esther’s dilemma was clear: if she kept quiet, her fellow Jews could be destroyed; if she spoke up, they could survive. Mordecai spoke to her in hopes of protecting his beloved Israel from destruction. Though he was Esther’s older cousin, he served almost as a father to her when she had become an orphan. His love for Israel was strong, and he challenged Esther to rise to the occasion to save Israel from destruction by the Persians. The Book of Esther unfolds this dramatic account and shows God’s faithfulness to His people and the role of a few unlikely heroes of the faith.

God has placed you into the exact time and place in which you live. As it was in the days of Esther, so it is now. He makes no mistakes. While the world around us becomes increasingly unstable, remember that God placed you when and where you are for His glory. If Esther would have faded into the background, Israel may have been destroyed. If you fade into the background, those around you may be destroyed. She didn’t let bitterness, fear, or anger silence her. You shouldn’t either.

Christ was born into a violent world in which Israel was under the heel of the Roman empire. Paul refers to that time as “the fullness of the time” (Galatians 4:4). The time in which the Lord Jesus walked the earth with his original followers was one of the harshest times in history. The church, however, flourished in such a time as that. God may be planning to use us similarly. Don’t let bitterness, fear, or anger about the direction our modern culture is going make you useless to God and to the people around you. You have been placed where you are for such a time as this.