Month: November 2018

I’ve been at this Bible studying for almost as many years as I’ve been alive. I attended Christian school, church twice a week and small group Bible studies beginning in middle school. I know my stuff. The old testament does not scare me.

I’ve also lived. I’m darn near half a century and I’ve seen things, experienced things, lived among people. In other words, I’ve acquired street smarts to go along with my book learning.

In this latest study, I’m returning to a familiar story with a more nuanced filter. And with nuance comes realization that the black and white soliloquies of our youth were a decadent display of blissful ignorance as we now meander through the middle of our lives mired in the messy grays of life. Still, stepping in to the pages of scripture and seeing similar hues, is an altogether more unnerving encounter. It means one must engage one’s mind when really, one would rather just be told what to do. Wrestling and asking for revelation, the kind that leads to transformation, is an art we’re unaccustomed to in our answer-driven, google-searching existences.

Study is such slow work.

If I were to guess, I’d say a good portion of the Bible readers I know are familiar with Esther’s story, at least in part, and at some point might have even uttered the phrase “for such a time as this” when needing to induce courage. It’s a good line for such a need as that.

But here’s what I never put together before. Esther’s beloved cousin Mordecai, the one who took her orphan self in and gave her steady wise counsel was also the one responsible for the predicament she found herself in. Yes. Mordecai made waves and got himself noticed. He chose not to show honor to an arrogant political prick and that, to put it mildly, poked the sleeping bear. Far as I can tell, it was a personal choice. God didn’t tell him not to. And there would be hell to pay.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the city, the King had asked for the fairest of the fair young ladies to be brought to him, for his pleasure. Esther was a beauty. So the virgin girl was taken from her home and placed on house arrest in the King’s court – for an entire year, awaiting her turn to be with the King. How wonderful. But as God would have it, she found favor in his eyes; meaning, he liked how she looked, or was drawn to her essence, or she simply had that “it” factor. We aren’t exactly sure, but we’ve watched enough American Idol to presume to know how this went down.

And so began her Queenliness.

But before that, Esther was a concubine and afterwards, a shrewd negotiator. All at the behest, the choices, the insatiable desire of others. One led an empire, the other her impressionable young heart. One could say she was but a pawn; a willing one, but a pawn nonetheless.

Ever feel like that?

I know I do. I get upset when I find myself in undesirable situations I didn’t create. Spend days whining to God about how unfair it is that so-and-so did this or that and here I am living in the aftermath. Wasn’t I somehow supposed to be spared the harsh reality that other people can affect the trajectory and dreams of my own life? (Remnants of my black and white ideal linger long.)

Esther is my new hero not because of her courage to face down one of the most powerful tyrants the world has ever known, but because she faced her life’s detours with grace. From what’s recorded, she wasn’t bitter. She didn’t suddenly turn a deaf ear to Mordecai, the man she’d rightly trusted. And honestly, I can’t even fathom being with a man who’d taken hundreds of other women and now as “the queen”, can’t approach for fear of death. But even so, Esther lived. Vibrantly. Throwing banquets, saving nations, writing words of good will and assurance to her people (#kindred), fasting and praying. She kept on, regardless.

The longer I live, the more inclined I am to want to know people’s story, especially those in Scripture. I love the one liners as much as the next person but I crave knowing, reading, seeing how men and women of faith survived their day to days more than conquered their Goliaths.

Because that’s what most of life is. Day to day. These visions of grandeur where plans move along according to timelines and destiny as some sort of birthright, keep us bound to end results. And the end should not be our concern. God is the end. He declared it. He is also the beginning.

So be of good cheer! These middle days have been orchestrated by One who knows the events you didn’t bargain for and yet perfectly designed you to rise up for such a time as this.

I love studying the lives of the men and women on the pages of Scripture. I find the parts of their lives not necessarily intended to inform is where I linger most. In that sense, I come at scripture through my own lens. I trust it’s part of the learning process or God wouldn’t have spoken to us in story book form. So I don’t shy away from reading between the lines.

This week I spent with Esther. Oddly, it wasn’t Esther’s actions that piqued my curiosity, but rather the scene-setters surrounding her. I saw her for the first time as a bit of a pawn in the games other people were playing. I admit I wasn’t looking for God’s redemption. I was looking at people. I made a judgment on her cousin Mordecai that had me questioning his intentions. Particularly the choice he made not to bow down (as a show of respect to a political official) to Haman.

I saw this choice as a personal one. A bit of a pissing contest gone awry. He and Haman’s forefathers had long hated each other. So there was history between them. I didn’t cease to see Mordecai as a man of good character, just one whose action drew unnecessary attention to himself, thus endangering hundreds of thousands of lives. Lives that Esther would eventually be required to negotiate for, at great risk to herself. 

Perhaps he was refusing to bow because in doing so he would be denying his allegiance to the God he wholeheartedly served, which is what I always assumed. But the Scriptures don’t say that. It was left to interpretation.

And I had never before interpreted his choice as anything less than honorable. 

Until this week.

I shared what I’d written with the group of women I’m studying alongside. Though they appreciated the deeper discussion, they challenged my conclusions and gave entirely different perspectives.

It was a great exchange of thoughtful dialogue between serious women. 

Yet I left our time wondering if I was wrong. Not just coming at it from a differing viewpoint, but actually wrong. 

So I’ve been asking myself, why did I react to Mordecai like I did? Why did I question his motives? Why did I think “political oneupmanship” and not fearless integrity?

In short, my lens. 

I’ve been living in the backwash of other people’s decisions for awhile now. Men who claim to follow Christ same as I do whose “judgement calls” have greatly affected the trajectory of my life and left me feeling powerless. Reactionary. Two things I loathe feeling.

{I should also take a moment to confess, I’ve been binge-watching House of Cards. That Frank Underwood is one stone cold SOB. He’s as ruthless as any real or imaginary tyrant we know. I can’t ignore that these hours upon hours of intake have undoubtedly seeped into my subconscious, further complicating my motive-meter.}

But back to my fervent study of scripture  😉  

The correlation I subsequently drew between all these choices and lives (including my own) is that wrong doing, left unpunished, emboldens. Which is why we need accountability by way of community. Not only to safely share and find acceptance, but to be called out. Challenged. Especially those of us who lead. And we all lead.

Today I was.

Oh so gently and not at all intentionally, but challenged nonetheless. My lens is in need of mercy. I’ve been dwelling on the actions of others for a long, long time. It’s tainting my view of myself. And worse, of God. Even my circumstances (which one would think are fairly black and white) are subject to interpretation. Just depends on the viewfinder.

I do know one thing though…Esther was tossed from one dire situation to the next with truly no say in if she wanted what she was getting or not. But she proceeded through each one with grace, finding immense favor along the way. She stayed true to who she was, regardless of what others did or their reasons for doing it.

Come political gamesmanship in the name of Christ, hardball in the name of business or simply honest differences, that’s who I want to be. True. Guileless. Other people’s actions do and will continue to affect my life. Period. It would seem then that surrendering to this notion is not weakness but the first step toward maturity. 

Thank you sisters.