Right Here, Right Now

Ever wonder what the purpose of your life is? Wonder if you are where you are supposed to be, doing something useful?

Yeah, lots of us have these thoughts at times. And lots of us wonder if the world is falling apart around us. What are we supposed to do?

Esther and Mordecai faced similar problems in their day and location. The Israelite people had been conquered and lived in another empire with a different religion and culture. There were people who wanted the Jewish people gone, and made plans to kill all the Jews in the empire.

Mordecai was faithful to God, and hopeful that God had a plan for God's people. The thing was, the plan included his niece Esther, who had just become a wife to the emperor.

Mordecai had to talk to Esther and convince her that her life had a purpose that included saving their people from death and destruction.

Mordecai talks to Esther about the possibility of her role in saving her people: "For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverence will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such as time as this?" Esther 4:14

Mordecai knows God will save God's people, but Mordecai also knows Esther has a choice, and salvation is not dependent upon Esther's choice, but rather God's power and plan. There is a future, and Esther can choose what her role in getting to the future will be.

Esther decided to take action and saved her people. But Mordecai was right, and Esther had the opportunity to make a different decision, and God would have found other people to carry out God's plan.

In the end, as Eugene Petersen points out, the book of Esther in the Bible "celebrates the eternal miracle of the survival of God's people." Esther chooses to take a risk and works with Mordecai to develop a plan that keeps her people together and safe.

What about us today? What if we are in the right place and the right time to do God's work in the world today? Are we willing to take a risk and leave our comfort zone to care for someone else?

God has created each of us in God's image, so each of us have choices and creativity and power to care for the people around us. We get to choose how to use the resources God has given us. What choices will each of us make today? I look forward to seeing what God does through your life. Amen.

Pastor Anna-Lisa Hunter

November 26, 2025

• Eugene Peterson, Five Smooth Stones, p. 199.