Brave, Even When Life Makes No Sense

At age 16, how would you have answered this question: “What do you want your life to look like?” 

At 16, I would have said that I wanted to go into the business world, get a college degree, get married and have kids by the time I was 25. But life went a little differently than I’d planned.

What about you? Has life gone the way you anticipated? Or have there been twists and turns that have left you wondering “what in the world?!” 

Esther’s life went a little differently than she’d planned. Her parents died when she was young, so she was adopted and raised by her older cousin Mordecai. She was a Jewish girl, both of those adjectives putting her into the lowest of classes.

Somehow though she gets put into this Persian Beauty Pageant, and after being paraded before the King she’s selected the winner and promptly crowned Queen.  

What in the world?!

We are spending the first weeks of summer looking at this word BRAVE. Last time we asked the question,

This question is resonating with so many. I’ve heard from so many, women who want to live life from a brave place. 

But sometimes life doesn’t go as planned. Sometimes we end up in a completely different place than we ever expected. However, I believe this to be true for all of us:

Brave Truth #1: God has a purpose for your place.

Esther’s life made no sense whatsoever.  There’s no way she should have EVER been crowned queen. She lost both her parents, she was raised by other family members, she probably had abandonment issues, probably needed therapy.

But she came to understand that her place had a significant purpose.

It’s hard to see that sometimes, isn’t it?

There were so many times in those early years of raising my kids that this question of purpose was huge for me. Days on end of little ones, where all my physical and emotional energy was spent on just keeping them fed and alive.  Coming to the end of many days wondering, “Seriously? Is this my life? Why is this my life? WHAT IN THE WORLD?!”

Maybe you’re there.

Or maybe you’re living your life in the waiting room, convinced that once that next door opens, THEN your lives will really begin. It’s just about getting to that next place, right?

• If I’m single, I just need to be married.
• If I’m married, I just need to have a baby.
• If my kids are in this stage of life, I just need to get them to the next.
• If I could just get that next job, I’d be set.
• If only I could ___________, then all would be right in the world.

What if you became convinced that God has a purpose for your current place?

I get it, life is crazy and sometimes it’s all just a hot mess. Sometimes we cannot possibly see how to untangle all that’s been knotted up.

Esther understood crazy. She learned through Mordecai that the King had been manipulated into issuing a decree to kill every last one of the Jews. Her people. In Chapter 4, we read that Mordecai begged the Queen to approach the King and plead for mercy on behalf of her people. Here’s her response, (vs. 13, strongly paraphrased):

Are you crazy? I will die, and you should know that. There’s no way I’m ever approaching the King. 

Sometimes you cannot even think straight when it’s time to stand up and be brave.

Sometimes you need help.

Sometimes you need someone outside your circumstances to come alongside you to help you see the purpose for your place.  To help you be brave.

That’s exactly what Mordecai did.  He sent word back to the Queen and said,

“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. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” 

Who knows, Esther, but that you were made Queen for exactly this time and this place?

This week, consider these two questions:

1. What’s your place? Look at the circumstances around you, the people, the schedule. Where does God have you right now?

2. What would He have you do in that place? What does it look like to live fully present in your life?

God has a purpose for your place. Don’t look past what is now. It is not by accident that you are where you are.

Right here, right now.

Don’t miss that.

Don’t spend your time wishing everything was different. Don’t keep wishing your place looked like Pinterest or that you were going to all the places everyone else is going to on Facebook.

Don’t spend your one and only life wishing you were someplace else.

Because who knows, maybe you were brought to this place right now for such a time as this?

_____________________

Want more? We’re over at LifewithLisaWilliams.com talking more about all this. Plus, join us on Facebook for additional encouragement and community throughout the week.

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