esther

Yesterday at church there was a great play telling the story of Esther. And, like in the Jewish celebration of Purim, the congregation was encouraged to cheer and boo loudly when the story called for it. The villain even wore a sinister black cape.

One line in the story stuck with me. Mordecai says to Esther,

"If you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's house will perish." (Esth 4.14)

I've written before that the fulfillment of God's will is not dependent on our cooperation (thank God!). It's actually amazing that God does invite us to participate in his will. That we can be a willing part of what God is doing, with all the excitement and joy and fulfillment of that experience. Of course, we can also choose not to willingly participate. In which case God does what he intends anyway, despite us, by some other means, and we are left out of what God is doing in the world. As Esther demonstrated, the other way is much better.