God’s Instrument

God’s Instrument

Queen Esther

Read: Esther 4:13-14

When Mordecai urged Esther to intervene for the Jewish people, he told her that even if she refused to act, the Jews would still be saved somehow. Mordecai trusted in God’s promises to his people and realized that God would not allow their destruction. After the crisis had passed, Mordecai’s words must have lingered in the queen’s mind. No one could deny that Esther acted courageously and wisely, but she knew that God had orchestrated every detail of the Jews’ rescue.

God had placed Esther in a unique position to intervene with the king. He had guided Esther to wait until the perfect time for revealing her request. In the meantime, he arranged for Xerxes to learn of the debt he owed Mordecai for saving his life. When Esther finally revealed Haman’s plot that endangered her life, Xerxes walked into the garden in a rage. At the moment that he returned to the room, he saw Haman falling on the queen’s couch and assumed that he was assaulting her (7:6-8). This final detail sealed the doom of the Jews’ bitter enemy.

When we accomplish some important task for God, it may be easy to get puffed up with our success. Any sense of self-importance disappears when we remember that God is the One in control over everyone and everything in his world. He doesn’t need our help, but he allows us the blessing of participating in his work. If we refuse to fulfill our assigned role, God will find another person or another way to work it out. Queen Esther knew that she was God’s instrument, and she gave the credit for the Jews’ deliverance to God. Like Esther, we need to remember that although God never needs our help, we always need his.

He is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.

Acts 17:25 (NIV)