Nougat 27

Are you discerning of times and seasons? Consider today’s Holy Nougat

“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 ‭4‬:‭14‬ ‭NLT‬‬

She’d been through so much – the death of her parents, being fostered by an older relative who was convicted marrying the king and denying her identity was the best career path; and when she obliged, she was subjected to a year’s preparation that may have included being subject to entertaining an irresponsible king; in order to be One wife in the harem of several!

That’s probably not the path she’d envisaged for her future!

And now said father figure needed – okay, wanted – her to seek audience with her temperamental husband, the king, without an appointment. She knew what had happened to Vashti, the wife she replaced. Everyone knew. Vashti was deposed for refusing to diminish herself by dancing before the drunk king and his cronies.

Her husband.

Their husband.

He had little regard for others other than himself and definitely not for women. In fact, entering the king’s presence without a prior authorization was grounds for execution, despite being wife.

Did no one ‘get’ her pain?

She was likely to have still been a youth. What more did he need of her?! That was the ultimate sacrifice. Naturally, she said ‘NO’. He drew for the big guns. She steeled herself for it. The reminder of her heritage – seems he forgot that she’d already hidden her identity, at His own insistence! But then he went low: he then suggested that he could die and it would not only be on her conscience but she would also die. Maybe she hovered over him dying, but I doubt it as death would have been a trigger for her. I suspect that she still hesitated.

Then he added, “Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” It took her back to the roughest years, when as a new orphan her life seemed to have no direction. And he not only took her in and raised her as his own, but also insisted that YHWH had a special purpose for her life. They were political refugees, conscripted into the kingdom like other smart people from the homeland. And while she couldn’t publicly affirm her faith (hence no direct reference to YHWH), she was a Jew. She believed her uncle-father when he said YHWH marked her for a greater purpose.

Was this it?

Could. This. Be. The. Event. That. YHWH. Was. Preparing. Her. For?

How was she going to respond?

What’s your story?

Have you discovered Your Purpose? Despite your past, is God calling you for such a time as this?

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May all we seek be found in Christ