September 29 Krum Star
Article
"When Things go Wrong"
Why is life often troubling
and painful? Where is God when the unexpected and often
unwelcome events overtake us? What does God expect of
us in such times? What can we expect of God?
Almost everyone asks such questions
at some time or another, whether they consider themselves
religious or non-religious. Unrighteousness actions and
difficult circumstances hit just about everyone at some
point or another. Although some may look as they are living
charmed lives, a glimpse below the surface generally reveals
something very different.
Esther, wife of King Xerxes,
and therefore Queen of Persia around 470 B.C., certainly
seemed to be living the charmed life. Possessed of exquisite
beauty, she had been picked from a bevy of other lovely
young woman to replace the deposed Queen Vashti who had
been banished by her refusal to obey an order coming from
the king. Esther had it all—beauty, riches, position,
protection, admiration, love. A charmed life, indeed.
But Esther discovers that the
secret of her ethnic identity puts her in the middle of
a huge power struggle. Her life, and the lives of all
the other Jews living in Persia at the time, may depend
on an act of incredible courage on her part. What will
she do? What is expected of her? Will she risk her life
for her people or simply try to save her own and hope
her ethnicity is never discovered? The biblical story
reads a bit like a current novel or TV plot, doesn’t
it? Yet, her story and her struggle become universal as
each of us must also ask, “What does God expect
of us when things go wrong?” Because things do indeed
go wrong, no matter how we may wish they didn’t.
Esther’s conflict and
ultimate choices affected the whole history of her people.
Most of us don’t think our choices are that consequential.
But how do we know? What if the way we enter into our
own adversities and challenges affects generations following
us? What if God expects us to transform our adversities
rather than escape them? Let’s talk about it on
Sunday.
