Destiny

Esther by Sir John Everett Millais, 1865I love this painting of the biblical queen Esther, found here. The website describes the painting this way:

Esther, dressed in royal robes, stands outside the entrance to the throne room of her husband, King Ahasuerus. She raises her right hand to untie the pearls which hold back her thick hair. In her left hand she holds her crown, which she is about to place on her head. This is the moment of decision.

The young women's bible study group that meets at my house is currently studying the book of Esther. It's a story that has long intrigued a number of us in the group, and we're enjoying picking up new bits and pieces about the book and the story as we do our reading and research.

This last week we got to talking about destiny and hearing God's voice. I've been thinking about those things since then.

I used to lie in bed as a child and imagine that God had a special destiny for me, as He did for Esther. Perhaps I would do something great or special in my life, coming to a certain place or position for a certain time in which I was needed. Not anyone else, but me, because I would be the only one who could do what needed to be done. Thus went my imaginations.


Perhaps, if I strained hard enough, I would hear God's voice in my ear, guiding me. There's nothing in the story of Esther that describes a situation of her hearing the guidance of God, but I was happy to mix up the sense of calling in Esther with the audible divine calling of the young boy Samuel in the night.

"Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." I had it all practiced and ready to say.

More recently I've taken the position that for some people there is a Great Destiny, a crossing of time and situation such as occurs in the story of Esther, or Moses, or Samuel, when a leader is needed to save the people. But such a Great Destiny is extremely rare, and tends to be separated by great blank spaces of time--many, many years--during which there is no discernable divine intervention or communication through a larger-than-life person. God seems content to be perceived as silent for hundreds of years.

"Sounds lonely," one of my friends said to me.

"Only if you have expectations that God will always be making noise in your life," I responded.

It's not that I don't believe that God makes noise in our lives. But the Great Destiny stories are few and far between. Instead there are frequent smaller moments of destiny in our lives. They reside in the little things one person says to another that encourage or cause thought. They reside in the little steps toward a deeper knowledge of God.

Little moments of destiny are found, I believe, in an urge obeyed, a nagging thought followed up with action. Or they are in the little changes in our lives or understandings after reading a Bible story or devotional thought. Furthermore, the little moments of destiny sometimes consist of a very ordinary "putting of one foot in front of the other," managing one minute, hour or day at a time with our best love for God and commitment to dignity, whether there is evidence of divine action in our lives or not.

The little moments of destiny are not the ones that create heroes, fame or popularity. But somehow I think they matter every bit as much in the kingdom of God.