Left To Speak

Left to Speak

Mordecai sent this reply to Esther: “Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” Esther 4:13-14

I had the opportunity to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, when I was in the nation’s capital. The moment you enter the building, you can’t help but be swept back in time—to a horrifying time in world history. Not only does the museum tell the wrenching story of the Holocaust, but through leadership-training programs, it helps people in many walks of life to commit to preserving the core value of fighting against hatred and genocide and promoting human dignity.

The book of Esther relates a story of ethnic hatred that started with one man, Haman, an official in the court of King Xerxes of Persia. At first, Haman’s seething rage was focused on one person—Mordecai, a Jew—but it soon escalated to a plot of annihilating all Jews. Esther, chosen by King Xerxes to be his queen, was Mordecai’s cousin. Through his urging, she courageously uncovered the evil plan to the king and saved the Jewish people.

When we stop to think about it, our lives could be summarized just like the story of Esther. We were placed where we are for such a time as this. Just as God knew what Esther would face and what the world would be like then, He knows what the world will be like for us and how we can make a difference.

He requires that we respond to the call of duty on our lives. Indifference is not an option because it is the first step toward abdicating our personal and moral responsibility toward others. This call of duty is an innate sense created within us to aid others, to lift them up, and to fan the flicker of hope in them.

As you leave the main exhibit in the Holocaust Museum, you read the words by Pastor Martin Niemöller:

In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak.

This will never happen again, you say. We know better, don’t we? Take a look around and make sure.

Your life and mine—for such a time as this.

Uncommon Key > Never become indifferent toward people or how you treat them. Instead, consider how you might be able to help them. God may have put you in their paths for such a time as this.