If you’ve been on this earth for any real length of time, you’ve probably gone through a hardship or two. Or maybe it seems like a gazillion. You may be living life and think that things could certainly improve in some areas, but for the most part, life is good. You’re relationship with God is trucking right along – learning new things and feeling a refreshment in your spirit on a daily basis. Your relationships are feeling secure and robust with no troubles on the horizon.
You feel safe. You have peace.
But the world likes to bring trouble to our doorstep, doesn’t it? As I was reading the story of Esther, I couldn’t help but notice a few things on the surface level that I had just kind of skipped over before. Esther had her handful of hardship.
Sure, we might see her as a queen – living a life in the lap of luxury with servants and basically lacking no material thing – but before that… both of her parents died. We’re not told how old she was when she lost her parents – did they die at the same time or years apart? But we are told that her older cousin raised her. Raised her. That insinuates that she was on the younger side of things.
Did I skip the part about her living in exile? The Jews had been taken captive by the Babylonians – you might recall reading about Daniel interpreting dreams and spending the night with some lions as well as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (aka, the three amigos) dancing in an overly warmed fiery furnace. Well, Esther came on the scene about 200 years after them, even though the book of Esther comes first in the Bible. When we read about Esther, the Jews’ captivity had ended – they were free – but many didn’t return to Jerusalem.
Esther only knew the life of living amongst a culture that was not that of her people. She had never experienced the Promised Land. What does living among a different culture do to someone’s faith? Did she worship God? Did she observe the Passover? Did she do anything that set her apart from those that lived around her?
Then we come to being kidnapped. Now don’t misunderstand me – it’s not like a snatch-and-grab kidnapping. It was more of a come with us or else. She’s being raised by an older cousin because her parents are both dead, she’s living among people who do not believe in the God of her people, and the king of the land has commanded all the beautiful virgins to be brought to him in the hopes that one of them will be pleasing enough to be his new queen – but they now all belong to him even if they never receive the title of Queen.
As I was reading the brief bit of her story that’s in the Bible, I really struggled. She’s had a tough life, and now she’s commanded to give up any and all dreams she might have had for her future. She can only hope that the king finds her to be pleasing… And what is one of the ways he determines whether or not they’re pleasing enough?
Basically, Esther’s future was either going to be that of queen, or she would end up as one of the king’s many concubines (someone the king gets to be physical with, but she has no rights as a wife – and no other man gets to touch her). After 12 months of beauty treatments and training, each virgin had their night with the king. One by one, they would be escorted to his private room where he basically got to test drive them (it’s as crude as it sounds). The next morning, they were escorted to a new area of the palace that was reserved for other women (a harem) that the king would find occasional physical enjoyment with (Esther 2:1-20).
Notice in Esther 2:19, even after she finds favor with the king and is made queen, he still doesn’t release the other virgins, but instead does what he does and then they ended up in his harem. Anyone else feel the shiver of a massive creep factor? I can’t help but ache for Esther and the other girls – likely young teenagers – who were stuck to live out their days with no real intimate relationship.
It’s a pretty dramatic story, isn’t it? There’s so much heartache, yet there’s also so much triumph. With Esther as queen, along with the help of the cousin who raised her, she saves the Jews from an evil royal decree that would have wiped them all out – men, women, and children were all ordered to be killed on the same day. She was definitely at the right place – with the right title – at the right time.
And throughout her story, God isn’t mentioned a single time.
Have you ever been going through a hardship – one of the gazillion that life throws your way – and struggled to find where God was in all of it? You’re in the middle of it and you’re just trying to get from one day to the next and fighting discouragement at every turn. Even when Esther is letting her cousin know that she’ll push through her fear of fighting for her people, she doesn’t ask him to pray. The only mention of anything that might allude to faith is fasting (Esther 4:16).
But God isn’t mentioned once. There’s no miraculous salvation, no encounter with a heavenly messenger, and no visitation through a dream. Not even a prophet with a Thus sayeth the Lord… to be found within the ten chapters of Esther’s dramatic tale.
Do we see God in the hardships? Do we see Him working in the details, behind the scenes? As I was thinking about this, I came across an interesting detail that was in a story about 200 years before Esther. Remember the three amigos I mentioned earlier? They had a pretty dramatic moment with another king.
In Daniel 3, we read about the Babylonian king who ordered that all bow down to worship a golden statue. And we discover three young men who refused to do so. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stand resolute in their faith – they will not bow down but will only worship God (Daniel 3:1-18). The king goes into a rage and orders them to be thrown into the fiery furnace – but he’s so furious that he has the furnace turned to max heat.
The three amigos didn’t back down, but they also didn’t fight against the guards who bound them and led them to the furnace opening. The detail I found interesting as I read through their story this time is found in Daniel 3:24-30. Nowhere does it tell us that the three amigos saw the fourth man in the fire with them. But it does tell us that the king saw him.
Esther and the three amigos faced some hardships and a lot of uncertainties. But in all of it, God was still in the details. The three amigos may not have seen the fourth man walking in the fire with them, but He was still there, and the three amigos came out without even smelling like smoke! The book of Esther may not mention God a single time, but we can still see Him working in the background.
It’s difficult to encourage others when we need it ourselves, and this has been a discouraging year for me. But I hope that this reminds you – as it reminded me – that God’s right there with you. He’s there to fight the battle for your family, He’s there to comfort you when you’re feeling overwhelmed, He’s there to be your shield when you feel as though you’re under attack, and even if no one else understands your hurts… He’s got you.
You may not see God in the hardship you’re facing right now, but trust that He’s there. Like Esther’s story, you might be in just the right place to hear the right thing that will give you favor in the eyes of the right person. God is in the details. God is working things out for your benefit. And He is always ready to take a stroll in the fire for you.