For Such a Time As This!

It is 4 am here in NE Ohio and I awoke with that powerful thought running through my brain from the Book of Esther which states: 

 

For 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?"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE6Jp61U44k

It is an amazing, intriguing and insightful story in the Book of Esther with destruction, fear, consternation all folded into the narrative for it is a story of a decision to step forward and face possible death and a story of extinction of a race of people if you choose to remain in the shadows of history.  Every time I have studied this Book and this story I find myself pondering deeply the applicability of that context for our world today. 

 

I was singing to a wonderful group of older people Tuesday night and in the middle of one of the songs this whole story of Esther came to me so vividly.  During the night this night I was reminded of this message for each of us triggered, I supposed, by watching some family video from 1987 when I was the age of my children now with hair black, still agile with the basketball and filled with some really wonderful and some really tough memories in watching the DVR drill into my mind and my heart. So when the words, For Such a Time as This, blip on my internal radar, I am challenged to assess what it is I am doing in and with my life and for whomever is it being done?  So I sit here this early, cold morning trying to keep lights down so my wife can sleep, to put my words into a readable form for my benefit but you can read as well if you wish.

 

Each day I read the obituaries and realize most days that those faces and those stories used to be about really old people in their eighties plus but it seems more and more those photos and stories are more my age and much younger.  I learned yesterday a great childhood friend, a year older than me, left this world. George French was one of those boys in my youth that I literally was with every single day playing football, basketball, fighting the Germans in our backyard citadels, watching war movies at noon on Channel 13. We would laugh, we would share, we would live as young neighborhood friends in the1950s and 60s did knowing all the time George would flourish with whatever path he took.  He was smart, well read and a walking dictionary and more than anything, he was my friend. He is gone from this earth and I think processing that surprising loss, for me has taken me down a reflective pathway on Esther's reality; she was put in that situation for such a time as that to be part of the existence of the Jewish race. Wow, think about that!

 

My eyes are a bit blurry as I write this but it is important to ponder that simple question, what is it that you are involved in that clearly reflects why you are here and at this specific time in your life journey?  Being around elderly people in this region watching the aging process do its dastardly work of permanently altering vibrant lives, spousal separations, watching families either bond or pull farther part is part of my time now. Singing and speaking to large groups of the seasoned veterans of the battles of life about Jesus and Heaven is a blessing beyond measure to me.  I have become part of their families and many just want to talk, to have me listen to their worries about grand kids, siblings and the dark world of loneliness that abounds for some as they know their clock is ticking toward eternity. Many are happy yet far too many are simply sad and regretful.  I was told by a precious lady, Ms Leona, Tuesday night after a few minutes with her after the concert that I was there at her facility in her life "for such a time as this" so that refreshed in my heart the inevitable onslaught of time and what each of us can do to ease the worries and fears of that approach into eternity's air terminal.

 

For me, and I can only speak for myself, I do believe singing has become a powerful gift and force and opportunity to soothe some weariness and lift some heaviness to thousands each year be they white haired in assisted living homes, in Adult Bible Fellowship classes at my church or in the never ceasing mountain of jail and prison inmates I serve each year. I must admit that in the beginning, perhaps a decade ago when it all began, there was ego in the mix but I realized as the realities of this ministry began to unfold in seeing worsening physical and mental condition happen in such a short period of time since the last time you saw these precious people, I was being affected by the challenges of aging.  It was from this transformation of singing for the joy of singing to singing for the joy of providing a solace and enjoyment to hurting and worried people, that the singing became ministerially driven for me and it thus began a major change in my own heart.

 

So at sixty-six, getting to touch the lives of thousands of men and women year after year in singing and speaking about Christ and his Home prepared for the Christian, seeing loved ones again, being in a heavenly choir, rejoining with family again and seeing tears joy and smiles of understanding; that is why my calendar continues to reflect the belief in me that I am doing what I get to do for such a time as this.  I realize there are many opportunities presented me to do other things, a blessing, but in so doing would pull me from away from this work so I have given this work a high priority in my time availability.

 

So my challenge to you this day; for such a time as this whatever your "this" happens to be, are you fully embracing that as your life's meaning and work?  See, I fundamentally believe that for the Christian, you are provided gifts from God which can be many and varied or one or two but in that gifting, you are expected to utilize that gift for God's Glory in and through others. In believing that, I am absolutely convinced that singing is a gift God gave me years ago but has enhanced the drive to do my best on every song and word I speak, not for myself nor for the compliments of others, but to see the gentle touch of the Holy Spirit on a frightened, worried or downtrodden man or woman facing mountains so rugged they cannot imagine or the eminence of death coming very soon. So yes, I am getting to do what I realize with each event that I believe I am here for such a time as this in touching so many via music and word. Wow, that is powerful stuff when viewed in the context of my heart now in words. Now I understand why I was awakened thinking of Esther colored by seeing myself thirty years ago and the journey and travail that was yet to unfold in my life and in my family to bring us to this time in our lives now with grandchildren the ages of my children thirty years ago recorded in the video.

 

Please know this early morning, now nearly an hour since this writing began, I have never felt more blessed nor more honored to get to do what God provides for me to do. With me, I can be insatiable in getting involved and invested in things and in people but in this day about to unfold for my family, I feel so humbled by the ministries God has crafted for me .... for such a time as this I believe! Can you say that about your own life and arsenal of stuff and activities? Take an internal inventory and assess your life through that lens!