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Be a Flashlight 

When you need a certain tool, there is no substitute. When you need a screwdriver, a hammer won’t do. When you need a safety pin, a paper clip is close, but close doesn’t help. When you need a flashlight—you just need a flashlight.

Thankfully, most of us have flashlights on our phones. Rarely do we find ourselves with no access to light. But, imagine life before cell phones. Crazy, right? You’d need a real flashlight. So, we’d keep flashlights in strategic places—next to a bed, in a closet by the front door, in a junk drawer with the batteries, or in the trunks of our cars. Why? Because we need light to be accessible. We can’t do much without it, so getting a guiding light becomes priority in darkness.

The other benefit of a flashlight is that it’s portable. It’s handheld. We’ve all experienced that moment when we’re searching for something—a car battery in the dark of night, a dropped earring way under a bed, or keys in the bottom of a bookbag—and you need two hands to do the searching. So we all know that moment of relief when someone shows up, takes the flashlight from under our chin or our armpit and shines the light exactly at the angle you need to accomplish your task.

The portability of a flashlight is what allows it to be a guide. And we’re called to be guiding lights for others.

Esther was a flashlight. She strategically positioned herself to help guide others. When the king chose her as one of his wives, she embraced the opportunity to use her influence when the time was right.

When a guy named Haman convinced the king to agree to killing the Jews, Esther kept her Jewish background a secret and embraced a life-threatening risk of approaching the king to plead for his mercy on her people. She allowed herself to be a flashlight. She could have remained safe, taken no risks, and not cared about the dark path that lay ahead for those around her. Instead she used her influence, her light, and her passion and rose to the occasion. She embraced her place, knowing that God had strategically put her in a place of influence, “for such a time as this.”

In a world that says serve yourself only, learn to be a flashlight. Learn to position your influence as a guiding light, clearing a path for those who are in danger of being oppressed.

Challenge: Write some ways you can use your influence as a guiding light for those around you. Maybe it’s being a good example to a younger sibling or mentoring a younger student at school. Pray over it, and ask God to give you opportunities to be a guiding light for someone else.