Faith Versus Fate

Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Esther 4:14

The Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson had an unswerving confidence in the plan and protection of God. Once, during a battle, he sat down to write out a message to send to a subordinate. A Union cannonball struck a large oak tree above where he sat, showering him with bark and wood chips. He brushed off his paper and continued writing, focused on his task.

Jackson might have echoed the words of Esther from the fifth century BC in Persia: “If I perish, I perish” (4:16). When Esther spoke those words, she didn’t speak fatalistically; she spoke faithfully. Esther was a Jewess who was the wife of the Persian king. When she learned of a plot by a Persian official to destroy all the Jews in Persia, she took her life in her hands by daring to approach the king to save her people from destruction. Persian law said that anyone approaching the king without permission—even his wife—would die unless the king granted a pardon. Your faith in Christ may not be a life-or-death issue, but if it were, would your faith let you risk dying in order to do the will of God?

When your faith is in God, the chips can fall where they may without taking you from the task at hand.