Today, we will dwell in the word
within the same passage, but
considering different questions.
Remember:
Get in a quiet place.
Close your eyes.
Still your mind and body by “centering down.”
That is, breathe in for 3 counts, and exhale for 5 counts.
After a moment of silence, read the text.
As you read the text, ask yourself:
How does this text equip and send us?
What does it provide or promise in terms of resources?
How does it impel or inspire us?
After you read the text,
close your eyes and meditate on it and the question.
After several moments and you have a clear and
complete view of the text in your mind,
write down your thoughts.
Now that I have changed some settings on the blog
you may, If you wish, post your thoughts underneath today’s
devotional.
Hear the word of God:
When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry; he went up to the entrance of the king's gate, for no one might enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth. In every province, wherever the king's command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.
When Esther's maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he would not accept them. Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king's eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what was happening and why. Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate, and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king's treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people.
Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying, "All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law — all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden scepter to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days." When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not think that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this." Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, "Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish."
Esther 4:1-16 – NRSV
Grace and peace,
Ron
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1 comment:
There are times when we really feel the hazard of our undertaking to live in this world. Often our senses and emotions overflow with feelings of danger and exposure. God intended this world to serve as sanctuary and haven, yet it has become a place fraught with concerns and worries, and even dangers and risks.
This is especially true for God's people, who are launched into the world as lambs before the wolves. The more true we are to God's purposes of peace and justice, the more it seems that those who do not want peace or justice, but rather power and privilege, war against us. This conflict, and the feelings that come with it, take us to our very limits.
We fast because we cannot eat. We weep because we can no longer hold back our fears. We lament because crying out to God is the only thing that we know to do. Surely our God will hear us. Surely our God has prepared us for this moment. Surely he will provide what we need to move forward.
Regardless of how I understand, or don't understand, the movement of God, I must be faithful. I will do what I believe I must do to be faithful. I will trust God to be faithful even though his faithfulness may not come in a way or at a time that I expect.
I will then be prepared to glorify God when his faithfulness is revealed.
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