Lesson 22: An impossible request

Read Esther 5

When Esther received the information from Mordecai that the plans had been set into action to have Jews killed all throughout the country, she was afraid! She had not told anyone about her Jewish heritage. She probably wondered if it would do any good now, or if she would be called a liar.

In addition, there was a law in the country that no one could come before the king without being invited. If they did so, and the king did not want to see them, they would be killed immediately. Esther feared that if she went to the king without his permission, she would be considered just as disobedient to him as the former queen was.

Mordecai replied to her message of fear, that she should not think she would be safe in the palace just because she had not told anyone she was a Jew. Esther would be found out and killed along with all the rest of her people. Then Mordecai said to her, “You do not know if God placed you where you are just for such a time as this!”

Esther replied that she would pray and fast for three days to ask God’s guidance for this, and asked Mordecai to gather many other Jews together to pray and fast for her. Then, at the end of those three days, she would go to the king as Mordecai had requested. “If he kills me, then he kills me,” she added.


How often we too are upset by uncomfortable circumstances in our lives, and we want them removed. We cry and beg God to take the discomfort away so we do not have to face the pain or the fear – without ever wondering if God has sent this into our lives for a very specific purpose. In Esther’s case, it was for the purpose of saving her people from death! Did God need Esther to go before the king, facing possible execution by doing so, for Him to be able to save His people? No. God could have saved them miraculously.

But God loves to involve us in His plans so He can bless us by making us part of His solution. Esther had been hiding who she was. Do we hide that we are Christians because we fear being mocked, or worse? Esther feared she would be removed from her position or even killed. Do we fear for our comforts here on earth, or even for our lives?

God’s promise to us in Romans 8:18 is that any suffering that can possibly come to us here can never be measured on the same scale as the glory He will give us in heaven.

*Think of a time when you faced your fear and did what God asked you to do anyway – what happened?