It’s easy to grow complacent in freedom. It’s easy to grow accustomed to comfort and ease when the worst you can expect to be visited upon you is a dirty look, or a nasty word, or some deranged person flecking spittle on your windshield from all the yelling about how it’s their human right to kill a defenseless human just because it would be an inconvenience to their dream of an acting career.
Most people don’t know what they’re capable of until they are
in the midst of an existential crisis. Whether it’s getting lightheaded after
fifteen minutes of not eating or being unable to perform at their job if they
don’t have a hearty breakfast, most people will have an excuse handy for why they
can’t fast until the situation they find themselves in seems so insurmountable
that save for God’s intervention all will be lost. It is surprising how, in
those instances, the lightheadedness is no longer an issue, nor is their
inability to focus.
An evil man had schemed an evil plot that would see the whole
of God’s people done away with. His name was Haman, and he was so giddy over
the prospect of exterminating the people of God that he even built gallows in
anticipation.
A man named Mordecai discovered the plot and sent a message
to Esther, the queen, who was deeply disturbed by the news because she, too,
was a Jew. Times being what they were, the queen couldn’t just traipse into the
king’s throne room and demand a confab. She had to be summoned, and she hadn’t
been, and anyone who went into the king's inner court without having been
summoned would be put to death unless the king held out the golden scepter that
they might live.
Esther 4:15-16, “Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai:
‘Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither
eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise.
And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I
perish!”’
Throughout the ages, this has come to be known as Esther’s
fast, or the fast of Esther. It is significant because it indicates that you,
as a child of God, can fast on behalf of others for strength, favor,
protection, or provision.
Esther understood her predicament. She understood that if God
did not intervene, her actions would likely end with her death, and she
acknowledged that she did not have the strength or wherewithal to do it on her
own. She needed help. She needed strength. She needed the king's favor and
hoped that God would not turn a deaf ear to the pleadings of His children. She
wasn’t certain of His intervention; this much is clear in her final words to
Mordecai as she lays out her plan.
There are situations where self-preservation must take a back
seat to doing what needs to get done, and this was one such occasion. The
bravery Esther exhibited was not in not feeling fear or apprehension in what
she needed to do but in doing it despite the fear and apprehension she felt.
It’s one of the questions I get asked most often about the
men of my grandfather’s generation, who, in the face of certain death in case
of capture, still carried out the duties to which they had been tasked,
distributing Bibles, holding clandestine prayer meetings, and preaching the
gospel of Christ. It’s not that they weren’t afraid, it’s not that they didn’t
consider what would happen to them or their families if they got caught, it’s
that having considered all those things, they chose obedience despite
everything that could have gone wrong.
None of that generation was braver than this generation; they
were just more obedient. They were more willing to lay their lives down for the
sake of Christ, and in their willingness to sacrifice themselves, God did great
exploits through them.
Men who didn’t want to rock the boat sold the modern-day
church on the lie that it’s supposed to be easy, that the gospel is supposed to
be non-offensive, and that all the practices that made the primary church
fearless and strong, powerful, and effective were somehow antiquated and no
longer worthy of being practiced. Why deny yourself, why humble yourself, why
fast and pray and seek His face when you have Hillsong? Because they couldn’t
dare to measure the success of their newfound teachings based on the number of
discipled believers dressed for battle, ready to make war against the darkness,
they redefined success to mean bigger buildings, nicer cars, and pricier suits.
The metrics changed, and so did the definition of a successful ministry.
There was no longer any discernable difference between how
the church measured success and how the world measured success, and that suited
those who would betray Christ at the drop of a hat just fine.
Esther could have stayed silent, taken her chances, and
likely survived the planned holocaust of God’s people being the queen and
beloved by the king. Either way, she knew she couldn’t live with not doing
something to try and save the Jews from Haman’s plans.
Sometimes, success is not guaranteed, assured, or a given. Sometimes, the best you can do is cling to a sliver of hope that you will succeed in doing the right thing, and you do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do. Too often, as believers, we are overly concerned with the outcome, get discouraged, and fail to act because human reason tells us that chances of success are slim to none. That’s one in a long line of reasons why you shouldn’t follow your heart, trust your heart, or listen to your heart. The heart wants to preserve its host. Its primary purpose is to save its own hide. The heart will never tell you to walk through the fire; it will insist you avoid it at all costs, but you know that it’s in walking through the fire that you discover God’s presence to be undeniable, real, and true.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
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