Last year I attended a Beth Moore Bible study of the Old Testament book of Esther.  

The story of Esther reads like the script of a Disney Princess movie with the heroine moving from the tragedy of being orphaned while taken into captivity to being selected as a beauty contestant in the Miss Persian Empire pageant.  She wins and ends up being chosen by the king to be his queen!  You can almost hear the music at the coronation ball.

Every good story has a villain and this one is no exception.  In this case the villain’s diabolical scheme is so wicked if something were not done soon all the Jews of the land would be exterminated and their property confiscated by the government. The surprise twist of the story is the newly crowned Queen Esther is a Jew!  What will happen?  Will she be discovered and killed?  Will she keep quiet and try to save her own skin?  Or, will she realize all the amazing, unimaginable events of her life took her to the palace of the king for “such a time as this”?  Esther 4:14  I won’t spoil the story, you have to read it for yourself, but I will say it has a happy ending…

During one of the DVD segments of the Esther series, Beth Moore challenged us and said we would come to see, “What God has strategically planned in our lives - something of our destiny…. a call to courage and perseverance that would leave you feeling like the last person in the world capable of accomplishing the task.”  Those words struck me this past week and I began to wonder if I had not become the faith columnist of the Citizen News “for such a time as this”.  

In 2004 I sat in an interview with the editor of the Citizen News pitching my “Breakfast Serial” idea for a children’s section in the newspaper featuring the ongoing adventures of a dog named Piper.  Instead, I was asked to consider writing the Faith Column.  Talk about feeling incapable! The only qualification I had for accepting such a position was years of study and my training as a Bible leader with Precept Upon Precept Ministries.  I called my spiritual mentor and asked him what I should do?  He said, “Don’t worry about what degrees you have or don’t have.  Just write about what you know and explain what God is doing in your life.”  

This week, as the news broke of a Federal Judge’s ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, there is much to explain about what God has been doing in my life! You see, in addition to being the Faith Columnist for the Citizen News, I am also the Edgefield County, SC National Day of Prayer coordinator.  Like millions of Americans, I am greatly disappointed with the news of this ruling and consider it an immediate and serious matter for prayer.  Should this ruling become law, we may well witness the last year for the National Day of Prayer as we know it.  

But let me ask you something.  If someone were to rule that December 25 and the celebrations of Christmas were unconstitutional, would that stop the people of American from celebrating Christmas?  Well, someone has ruled the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.  Is that going to keep the people of Edgefield County from gathering together for this year’s observance of the National Day of Prayer? I don’t think so!

I’ll see you Thursday, May 6th - J-E-T Middle School – 7:00 – 8:30 PM!

For Such A Time As This!