For Such a Time

Esther 4: 3-4, 13-16

³ In each and every province where the command and decree of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing; and many lay on sackcloth and ashes.

⁴ Then Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her, and the queen writhed in great anguish.

¹³ Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews. ¹⁴ For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”

¹⁵ Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, ¹⁶ “Go, assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens also will fast in the same way. And thus I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

How do we react when we see people's needs? How do we respond?

When Esther found out that her people were grieving, she "writhed in great anguish."

She wasn't merely concerned; she saw and she responded.

After hearing the news of Haman's plot to destroy the Jews, she prepared to confront the king by praying and fasting and she asked all the people to do the same. Esther knew how to make decisions.