Never Good Enough

Never Good Enough

Young Women In Persia

Read: Esther 2:1-14

Brynn put the magazine down and went to the bathroom to find her magnifying mirror. Looking at some before-and-after pictures had started her thinking about ways that she could improve her appearance. While she didn’t have a big nose, Brynn had always thought that a slightly different shape would suit her face better. And even though people told her she had great skin, maybe laser treatments would get rid of those few freckles. If Brynn had studied her attitude instead of her face, she would have realized that even though she had won beauty pageants in high school, she had never felt quite good enough.

The young women in today’s passage were treated the same way that Brynn treated herself. The king appointed agents in each of his 127 provinces to hunt for the most beautiful young virgins and herd them into the palace like prize livestock. Even the most gorgeous girls in the land weren’t good enough for the king until they had spent an entire year receiving special beauty treatments. It’s hard to imagine the self-image of these women, who were involved in a twelve-month improvement program and still had to wait to see if the king would accept them.

Many women go through life feeling that they’re never good enough. We tend to dwell on the flaws in our appearance and on the abilities and gifts that we don’t have. Some women approach God with the same mind-set, thinking that they have to “clean up” before they can have a relationship with him. We don’t have to make ourselves good enough to become God’s children—he accepts us in our natural state and then begins to shape us into his image. After that, any self-improvement should be done to honor the One who loves us unconditionally.

He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

Titus 3:5