Editor’s note: Today is International Women’s Day which is the perfect day to invite you to our next Online Bible Study 12 Daring Women by Lisa Harper, Margaret Feinberg, Bianca Juarez, Chrystal Evans Hurst, Karen Ehman, and Courtney Joseph Fallick starting April 21st. Grab a girlfriend or two and join us for this wonderful study of twelve daring women in the Bible and what the spiritual lessons from their stories mean for us today.
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Key Scriptures: Esther 2–4; 6–7
Of the sixty-six books of the Bible, only two bear the name of a woman: Ruth and Esther. In each case, the woman is a central character in the story and a person of great faith. When we look closely at the story of Esther, we meet a woman who lived through a wide range of experiences and was used by God in stunning and beautiful ways.
To the casual observer, Esther’s life can appear to be the story of two radically different women. On the one hand, Esther seems like a pawn on the chessboard of life... powerless, abandoned, and oppressed. She suffered the loss of her parents, which would have been deeply painful. She was a foreigner in a land not her own. As a Jewish person in ancient Persia, she would have felt displaced both physically and spiritually.
Esther was also a woman in a time of history and a place in the world where the idea of “women’s rights” did not even show up on the cultural radar. To top it off, Esther caught the eye of the king’s servants and was taken into the king’s harem. Without any say on her part whatsoever, she was placed in a national beauty contest designed to find the king a new queen. She had chosen none of these things for herself and, to a large extent, had not had a say in much of anything that had happened in her life up till now. From this vantage point, the casual observer might see Esther as just a victim of the world around her.
But though many things went against her, Esther still had a love and respect for her family. She had a faith in God and a passion to walk in obedience to the Lord’s leading. She was willing to stand toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye with Xerxes, the powerful king of Persia, and make a heartfelt appeal for her people. She was able to navigate the political complexities of her day and outsmart the ruthless Persian leader Haman.
For these actions, Esther has become a model of faith and courage for people throughout history.
Was Esther oppressed, abandoned, lonely, and tossed around by the world? Absolutely! Was she strong, bold, faithful, and influential? Yes, she was!
What an example for women in every walk of life and in every possible situation. What a woman of God!
Black Ice
It’s called black ice. If you have ever lived in a place where winter hits hard and stays long, you know what this means. If you are from Florida, Southern California, or the Sahara Desert, you may have never even heard of it.
Black ice is a stretch or patch of road that looks normal but has frozen over due to snow, sleet, hail, or other moisture. When weather conditions create this dangerous driving environment, you can be driving along and everything seems fine, and then — all of a sudden — your tires lose traction with the road. Your car begins to drift, slide, and even spin. You feel out of control as your vehicle moves wherever the road takes it.
- There is nothing you can do when this happens... except pray!
Perhaps you don’t live in a cold climate like Fargo or Fairbanks, Buffalo or Boston, and you’ve never experienced this dangerous and scary situation. But you certainly know the feeling of hitting “black ice” on the journey of life. These are the times your life starts to slide out of control, and you do not even see it coming. Your health is fine one day, and the next something goes very wrong... you begin to slide. Your finances are all in order and your future looks secure, then the markets change and a dark cloud begins to form... the road becomes treacherous. Your marriage seems solid, and then your spouse, the one who promised, “As long as we both shall live,” informs you he’s changed his mind... things seem out of control.
No one travels long down life’s road without hitting “black ice” of some sort. In these moments, you must pray, trust God, and hold tight to the Ruler of the universe. ~ Courtney Joseph Fallick
Excerpted with permission from 12 Daring Women by Lisa Harper, Margaret Feinberg, Bianca Juarez, Chrystal Evans Hurst, Karen Ehman, and Courtney Joseph Fallick, with Sherry Harney, copyright Lisa Harper, Margaret Feinberg, Bianca Juarez Olthoff, Chrystal Evans Hurst, Karen Ehman, Courtney Joseph Fallick.
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Your Turn
Do you feel tossed around? Are you in a period of your life that feels like you’ve hit black ice and everything is out of control? Let’s stop and pray, call out to Jesus, and remind ourselves that He is Almighty God and He is good! ~ Devotionals Daily