Strange Places

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

I'm Tom Felton and I titled our reading, Strange Places. God, why is this happening? Is this really your plan for us? As a husband and dad of young children, those questions and more swirled in my mind as I wrestled with a serious cancer diagnosis. What's more, our family had just served with a missions team that had seen many children receive Jesus as their Savior. God had been bringing forth evident fruit. There was so much joy.

And now this? Esther likely poured out questions and prayers to God after she was plucked from a loving home and thrust into a strange new world in Esther chapter 2. Her cousin Mordecai had raised her as his own daughter after she had been orphaned. But then she was placed in a king's harem and eventually elevated to serve as the queen. Mordecai was understandably concerned about what was happening to Esther, but in time the two realized that God had called her to be in a place of great power for such a time as this. A place that allowed her people to be saved from destruction. It's evident that God providentially placed Esther in a strange place as part of his perfect plan.

He did the same with me. As I endured a lengthy battle with cancer, I was privileged to share my faith with many, many patients and caregivers. What strange place has he led you to? Trust him.

He's good and so are his plans. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Esther chapter 2 verses 3 to 4 and 12 through 17. Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring all these beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women and let beauty treatments be given to them. Then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti. This advice appealed to the king and he followed it.

Now picking up at verse 12. Before a young woman's turn came to go into King Xerxes, she had to complete 12 months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women. Six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. And this is how she would go to the king. Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the king's palace. In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shazgaz, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name. When the turn came for Esther, the young woman Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abigail, to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her. She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tabith, in the seventh year of his reign. Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins.

So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. Let's pray. Dear God, help us to trust You even when we don't understand what You're doing. Thank You that we can rest in Your good plans. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.