(Due to my coming home from the hospital yesterday, Advent Day 15 was late being posted. You will find it below today’s post.)
When I was a child, our neighbor was one of the first to own an electric carving knife. He showed it off proudly every chance he had, so the next Christmas my mother bought him an electric carving fork. The fork had an impressive electric cord that extended from the handle with a plug at the end. Mind you, the fork did nothing. The cord sent no electric current to the tines, but it did give the impression of power. Otherwise it was useless.
When Esther entered the harem of King Ahasuerus, she may have felt as useless as that electric carving fork. For a whole year she sat with the other beauty candidates going through beauty treatments, six months of treatments with oil of myrrh and then six more months involving spices and cosmetics. During that time she did not even see the king. And after the king selected her as his queen in the seventh year of his reign, she waited another five years without a clue why God had placed her in her role as queen.
At last the plot unfolded. Haman planned to kill all the Jews in Susa. When Esther’s cousin Mordecai learned of the plot, he approached Esther saying, “Who knows whether you have not attained royalty for just such a time as this?” (4:14)
Do you ever feel like your time spent waiting is wasted? Do you feel like you are useless while others are busy about the Lord’s work? Rest assured that God has a plan and will call you into action when he is ready.
