You Be You: A 7-Day Reading Plan with Jamie IveyParaugs

Finding Your Voice  

God seems to go out of His way in Scripture to show us women who spoke up for what mattered to them, who used their voices for influential purposes. Despite the fact that they lived in a time and culture where women were thought to have no voice, they overcame their fear and insecurity and said what needed to be said.

When Aaron and I were considering adopting from Haiti, and I imagined adopting a little girl from there, I wanted to name her Esther because of the story I love about Queen Esther in the Bible. 

If you don’t know the story of Esther, I’ll summarize it for you really quick. Esther was adopted by her cousin Mordecai because she had no other family. They were living their normal life when the king of Persia—King Ahasuerus—got rid of his wife because she didn’t respect him. True story, you can read it for yourself. Then his officials suggested that he bring in many beautiful women so that he could choose a new wife. These women spent twelve months getting beauty treatments. (I love a beauty treatment just as much as the next girl, but twelve months is a lot!) Eventually the king chose Esther. Sounds like a modern-day “Housewives of Persia” episode, if you ask me!

What Esther didn’t tell anyone, however, not even her new hubby the king, was that she was Jewish—an oversight that became more important when one of the king’s main officials decided he wanted all the Jews murdered, and the king went along with this plan.

What should Esther do? Not only to save herself but all the Jewish people? At Mordecai’s encouragement—made famous by his exhortation, “Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”—Esther got up the courage to confront the king and admit his decree would mean killing his new queen too. She interceded for her people and asked the king to spare their lives.

And it worked! Esther’s action saved a whole generation of Jewish people—which is important for even us today because Jesus our Savior came from the lineage of Abraham and was Jewish. Esther’s courage to speak up kept God’s plan in motion.

Here’s what I want you to see in the story of Esther. She used her voice to speak into a situation that was right in front of her. Her voice mattered. She used it to make a difference, to stand up for what was right. And although approaching the king with that request was likely the most difficult thing she’d ever done, God had equipped her for the task. The voice she used was the voice she already had . . . whether she knew she had it in her or not.

PRAY 

Dear God, Thank you for the beautiful story and example of Esther. I pray for the same type of faithfulness and courage as you equip me for the tasks I’ll face. Give me a strong voice! In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.