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"For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish."
(Esther 4:14a)
I remember visiting the on-campus nurse's office a few times during my first year studying at Dallas Baptist University. It wasn't a fun place to have to go, since it meant that you were sick, but I sure was grateful that it was available! Getting sick while away at college is a little scary because it is for many the first time dealing with the limitations and needs of being sick without your parents there to help care for you. I remember 18-year-old me sitting in the waiting room and feeling my eyes welling up with tears as I just felt so, so weak and a little scared. To avoid an awkward moment with the students working behind the counter, I turned my head to look at the wall instead, concealing my emotions. There my eyes locked with the wall decal they had used to decorate the waiting area. It read, "When you can't trace God's hand, trust His heart."
I remember this simple sentiment resonating with me in that moment. Though I was being a little bit dramatic, I was in a situation I had never been in before, and I was afraid. I was reminded that God is good, even when all my mind can focus on is my circumstances. I was reminded that even when I don't understand the "why", I can have faith in the "who". God was and is faithful to me. He has fulfilled every promise He has made in His perfect time. In the story of Esther, we see Mordecai placing His faith in the same God who is always faithful.
Mordecai had a plan for the deliverance of the Jewish people from the evil plan of Haman. As we read yesterday, Mordecai thought that God had actually orchestrated Esther to the position she found herself in as queen for this very moment, so she could be used for the salvation of the Jews from this evil plot. However, his trust in God's faithfulness led him to confidently declare his assurance that even if God's deliverance didn't happen the way that he hoped through Esther, he still trusted that God would be faithful to save His people and preserve them from this great threat from a powerful enemy.
Esther 4:12-14 says, "And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, 'Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?'"
Did you catch that part in the middle? "For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place." I admire his confidence in the Lord to deliver and save. In this statement, Mordecai was a living example for us of the kind of faith that is described in Hebrews 11:1, which says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
This is a great encouragement for us when we struggle to see how God is working. Trust His faithfulness. God is always faithful to keep His promises.
When you don't see God working, remember His promises. When you can't trace His hand, trust His heart.
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