What Am I Doing Here?

For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him. (Esther 4:14-17 ESV). Sometimes I run across old songs that were popular for a little while and remember them with fondness. Mr. Custer is one of those songs. It was a novelty song, sung by Larry Verne, that was a number-one song in the United States during the year 1960. It topped the Billboard magazine chart on October 10, 1960 and remained there for one week. It is a comical song about a soldier's plea to Custer at the climactic Battle of the Little Bighorn against the Sioux that he did not want to fight. My favorite line is sung with shrieks war whoops in the background; a voice, as if from nowhere says, “That famous day in history, the men of the 7th Cavalry went riding on; and from the rear a voice was heard, a brave young man with a trembling word rang loud and clear… ‘What am I doin' here?’” It reminds me of the wonderful story of what God did in the life of Esther to literally save a nation. Esther was a Jew who was plucked out of obscurity through an unusual chain of events and was made queen over the kingdom. Meanwhile, a wicked man named Haman had been devising a plot to put to death the 15 million Jews in that kingdom. So Mordecai, Esther's uncle, came to the palace, wanting Esther to use her influence to help her people. She did not want to be in that position. It seemed she would be doomed whatever her decision would be. Her life certainly wouldn’t be the same from that moment forward. You may be in such a place today. Wherever you may find yourself today, know that God has put you where you are for such a time as this. He has put you in that job or at that school. He has put you in that neighborhood. There are opportunities to seize. You may take hold of them knowing he has put you there for such a time as this. So many Christians today have failed to recognize this truth. They have been delivered from sin. They have found safety in the church. And they have grown complacent in the comfort of community. We live in a world when that cannot be our foundational position. Our nation, our families, are in need of the words we have been given. This is such a time! Don’t worry about the “arrows” being shot at you. Follow your leader, Jesus. Unlike Custer, he has already won every battle we shall face!