I have friends from all walks of life, some rich and some poor, some old and some young, some male and some female, some Christian and some agnostic. Lately, I’ve been thinking about a couple of my friends in the latter category. The stories in the Old Testament disturb them, and they’re unable to reconcile the God of the Old Testament to the one of the New Testament. How can a loving god destroy Job’s family and cover him with boils? How can He ask Isaac to sacrifice his son or allow Lot’s daughters to sleep with him after getting him drunk?
Ladies, I don’t know the answer to those questions. All I know is that all of the answers to all of life’s problems, issues, and mysteries can be found in the scriptures. As anyone knows who’s been reading this blog lately, I’m fascinated with the book of Esther. As a young friend of mine said, “Esther’s the bomb!” Yes, she certainly is. And so are you.
Any woman who reads and ponders this book will surely see parallels between Esther’s life and her own. We might not have the power to save our people on such a grand scale, but we all have “people” we can help. We can all fast and pray and get more in tune with the Spirit. We can all fight the good fight and do our best to destroy evil. We can all be assured that no matter how scary things appear, life can “turn on a dime.” In less than a week, Esther went from being a pampered recluse who hadn’t been summoned by her husband in 30 days to becoming Queen Esther with a capital Q. Because of her bravery and faith, Haman was killed, Mordecai was elevated, and the Jews were saved.
More on Esther later. For now, I just want to comment that trying to argue with God or against him is pointless. As C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, “But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes; you could not be right and He wrong anymore than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.”
In a nutshell, it’s cuckoo to argue about the being who gave you your mind.
2 comments:
esther, my hero, and i am a man, but yet she has made me think my courage, kindness, friendshipp, and for easter esther will be my HERO
Putz, Have I ever told you how much I appreciate your comments on my blog??? I do! About Esther, there's so much I want to write about her, but between my job, my children, my grandchildren, and church calling, I can't seem to get the calmness and clarity of thought to do Esther justice. Hmmm. Maybe tomorrow.
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