The story of Esther, the young Jewish woman who became the Queen of Persia, is very familiar to us. It has been dramatized many times. My personal favorite being ‘One Night with the King’, an adaptation of the Tommy Tenney novel. This story is so remarkable, not only from the romantic point-of-view of a woman winning the heart of the most powerful king of the time but even more importantly the providence of God and His plan for His people. His plans are beyond our comprehension and are so perfect!
Esther was chosen to be queen out of all the eligible young women of the 127 provinces (from India to Ethiopia) that Xerxes controlled. She won the ultimate beauty contest. But, I don’t think that she won solely based on her appearance. Yes, she must have been beautiful, but her inner beauty shined through also. She found favor with the king’s servants. This was because of her disposition - kind and compassionate, meek possibly. Her inner beauty drew them to her and she was given additional beauty treatments (Esther 2:9), not provided to the other women. Esther was also smart. When she was to appear before the king for her first visit, but she also consulted the servants and only took with her what they advised (Esther 2:15). Normally when the eligible women first went to see the king, they were later taken away to another building where they would wait until the king desired to see them again. But, after Xerxes saw Esther, he immediately made her queen. There was no waiting period. He loved her and she found grace and favor in his sight.
God planned this all out that a young Jewish girl with no ties to royalty would find favor among the servants in the palace, receive the love of the king, become queen, and be in a position to defend her people when the time came. That’s the kind of awesome, divine planning that God does.
This isn’t limited to just Bible characters, God has these kinds of plans in place for each and every one of us. He can do extraordinary things through us, take us through experiences that we never thought we would have all to fulfill his ultimate purpose. But, we need to surrender our lives to Him completely for Him to use us as He sees fit. Esther did as her Uncle Mordecai told her to do and in the end, did not compromise on her values when her people were threatened. In the same way, we need to follow God’s word and the advice of our elders so that we can be used for God’s purpose. We can also be queens like Esther, scholars like Solomon, warriors like David, and so much more. All we need to do is submit ourselves completely to whatever plan God has in store for us.
