For Such a Time as This

You were made for such a time as this. Truly, you were.

I know everything is unfair, unpredictable, and upsetting. They keep saying that these are unprecedented times. And they are.

But God has never used conventional ways to get our attention.

While I have been trying to navigate my own thoughts and feelings about the world right now (which is glorified mess) the only thing that keeps rising up in my spirit time after time is this:

“Don’t think that just because you live in the king’s house you’re the one Jew who will get out of this alive. If you persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will arrive for the Jews from someplace else; but you and your family will be wiped out. Who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this.

Esther 4:14 MSG

Amidst the all the uncertainty, frustration, and challenges God wrote you into this very time-line.

You and me. This generation. This pandemic and whatever follows in the coming days, weeks, years is not something that is happening to us.

It is something we were chosen for.

When God was knitting you in your mothers womb, when he was tying together your perfect combination of personality, character, talents, and dreams he had in mind everything you would have to face.

He knew it all, including where we are right now.

You are important. Not just that you have value in-of-itself (which you do), but that the person God made you to be is purposeful.

God has plans for the talents you hold, the heart you have, and the guts you carry. Could it be so crazy that he made you with this in mind?

When you get frustrated, like me, and start to think, “why is this happening now, I was so close to having it all together?!”

It is happening now because God knew this day was coming and he wanted us to face it.

And we are not facing this alone. As Lysa Terkeurst writes, “God is in all of our tomorrows”.

We were never promised an easy life, as much as I wish it was the case. In fact, we were told that there would be trials and tribulations. So here they are, our trials and tribulations.

God is here and his hand is on everything. He is the ultimate shepherd, and he will provide and protect for his sheep.

There is not a single virus or event on this Earth that can make that statement untrue.

I want to build courage, endurance, hope, and resiliency where fear, anxiety, and terror are starting to grow.

Hardships will come, but that does not mean we are abandoned. Your life is not being interrupted, this was part of your story all along.

You are here to be a testimony through it all.

Have no fear. Face each day knowing God has already stood in it, conquered it, claimed victory over it.

I do not know about you, but I want to go where he has stood.

So while we are in the midst of this, let us marinate in this truth: to everything there is a season, and even this will end.

Meanwhile, let us use our talents, our resources, our callings to help each other remember that God is always in control and that we are not victims.

You are a chosen person for a chosen time.

Rise up to the challenge.