Called Out

There are choices we make daily that sometimes have unintended consequences. It easy to become unaware of all the connected people. I live in a small town in Georgia and there are a lot of people who are relatives to one another.  I have learned to work at being kind to everyone and then I don’t have to worry about who hears about me or what I’ve done. I am certainly not perfect at this. I have never tried to bring harm to another person, but I have pushed back when I felt like I was being harmed or about to be harmed.

Haman was the right-hand-man for King Xerxes and he had been given permission to wipe out the Jews in the spring of the following years. He hated Mordecai, who was a Jew and wanted to kill him and his people. He didn’t know that the Queen was of Jewish decent and to wipe out the Jews was to wipe out her people.  The Queen invites the King and Haman to dinner to ask for her life and the life of her people. Check this out….

³ Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor with the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my request, I ask that my life and the lives of my people will be spared. ⁴ For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us. If we had merely been sold as slaves, I could remain quiet, for that would be too trivial a matter to warrant disturbing the king.”

⁵ “Who would do such a thing?” King Xerxes demanded. “Who would be so presumptuous as to touch you?”  ⁶ Esther replied, “This wicked Haman is our adversary and our enemy.” Haman grew pale with fright before the king and queen. ⁷ Then the king jumped to his feet in a rage and went out into the palace garden. Haman, however, stayed behind to plead for his life with Queen Esther, for he knew that the king intended to kill him. (Esther 7:3-7 NLT)

Haman was serving himself. The king thought Haman was serving him. Esther had to be strong and courageous because the king could have rejected her. Esther didn’t make assumptions about her relationship with the king – she was kind and respectful.  She spoke on behalf of others, as she could have kept her heritage secret.

There are times that I have to make a decision to respect another even if others might question my motives or my character. It’s always the right time to do the right thing.  The king orders Haman to be impaled on the very pole that he constructed for Mordecai.  Esther’s courage had saved her people and herself.

It takes courage to call out someone who has done wrong or is doing wrong.

Pressing On!

Dwayne