The Moments that Define You
Introduction
Esther 4
Visible Reaction
While the individual words for fasting, weeping, and wailing appear many times in the Old Testament, this appearance in Esther 4 is unique and incredibly significant. In fact, the only other time in the Hebrew Bible where you find these three verbs in exactly that identical construction is in Joel 2:12
Esther’s Hesitation
3. A communication problem: This was another obstacle that many people overlook. If a person had a petition for the king, the business had to first be communicated to the supreme commander—the king’s prime minister—who arranged the appointments on the basis of priority … and that supreme commander was Haman. Esther would have to communicate her secret to him before it ever reached the ears of the king … and she certainly couldn’t give her secret away to Haman.11
Ahazuerus thought Esther was Persian. It had already been difficult enough for him that she wasn’t related to any of the seven noble families from which, according to Persian custom, the queen was supposed to come. Now he stood to face incredible humiliation and embarrassment for the fact that he had actually ordered the death of the queen’s own people … and his queen, too.
Frankly, he would look like an idiot.
God in her fear
Defining moments
Defining moments are those small steps of obedience that bring us closer to becoming the disciple God wants us to be.
In the spring of 1955, a brilliant twenty-six-year old student received his doctorate from Boston University after completing his thesis: “A Comparison of the Conception of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.” Although his professors praised his scholarly potential and colleges offered him faculty positions, this young scholar decided to prepare for his teaching career by spending a few years as a pastor. When Dexter Avenue Baptist Church extended an offer, he moved to Montgomery, Alabama, for what he expected to be a brief, quiet season of pastoral work. From his position in the church he would soon return to his first love—academia.
But history altered his plans. On December 1, 1955, a black woman named Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat in the “whites only” section of a Montgomery bus. Before the young pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist knew what had happened, he had been elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, an organization of African Americans committed to racial justice. From that platform he was soon catapulted into national leadership. Martin Luther King, Jr. never returned to academic life. The vicissitudes of history would not allow it. Or, as Dr. King believed, God had chosen him for an unexpected calling.
Defining moments are those small steps of faith where we trust God the way He deserves to be trusted.