Junior High and Esther

One morning, I decided to do my devotions from the book of Esther. It was a little bit random, but I couldn't resist. When I was growing up, Esther was my absolute favorite personality from the Bible. I have always been drawn to Esther. I never tire of reading about Esther, her boldness, her strength and her silent courage. Because of this interest in Esther, I decided that I really wanted to read the story of Esther as a replacement to my regular devotions. I did not think that it would be very applicable to my day, but I went ahead with it anyway.

As I was reading, one verse in particular stuck out to me. Ester 2:20 says, "But Esther had kept secret her family background and nationality just as Mordecai had told her to do, for she continued to follow Mordecai's instructions as she had done when he was bringing her up."

When I typically think of Esther, I think of a beautiful Queen who got body massages, pedicures and spoke out to a King. I picture a hero, and the type of woman who walks into a room and everyone thinks 'wow.'

I don't typically think of Esther the way this verse describes her. This verse describes a woman who stripped herself of her identity so that she could become blended into a culture and she could show God's name, instead of hers.

As I was thinking about it, I realized that for Esther to live out God's plan, she had to strip herself of every identifying factor that she had previously used to represent herself. This verse demonstrates that Esther lost her culture, her religion, her name and her family in order to assume this position as Queen. If this were to happen today, she would be seen as crazy. But, clearly God knew what he was doing.

Because of this, I challenged my Long Island group to do the same. I challenged them that as they were serving that week, to strip themselves of their religion, their names, their culture and their families in order to not restrict God's plan. I told them to be willing to just serve as they walked in the middle of God's love. As they took on this challenge, they slowly understood. They began to serve throughout the whole week glorifying God because they had assumed his identity, as they slowly stripped themselves of their own. The more they did this, the more they understood the true reason of why they were here.

Needless to say, it was such a cool lesson, and it was even cooler to learn it from 'just a bunch of Junior High-ers :)'