Who Wants to be a Queen?

We Filipinas tend to place a lot of emphasis on our beauty and towards things that are beautiful in our eyes. We have our favorite makeup brands and ways of applying them. Red lipstick suits most of us. But some overdo it.

Natural beauty is preferred among men; they can see through the make up caked on faces and which needs a putty knife to take off at night. Joke lang.

But when we get right down to it, we are all beautiful in God's eyes and that is something we can take comfort in, because He does not lie like we do. Let's rejoice in this fact and give praise and honor to God, amen?

Esther

Esther was a queen in the days of old. Many women's Bible studies speak about her and how many women want to be just like her. This should be rethought, and here is why: the book is frequently misunderstood. Women have a tendency to say, "I want to see what Esther had and I want some of it."

The problem

There's a problem with this line of thinking. Esther was far from being an exemplary individual. She was a mix of both good and bad. But aren't we all? The good thing is, though we are sinners who run afoul of God's will for us, He can use us for His divine plan. We see this in the story of Esther. Let's have a quick look.

The story

The setting of the story of Esther is the Persian kingdom (modern day Iran). around 470 or 465 B.C. Esther was part of the ethnic Jews who remained in Persia after the exile. Though God had commanded them to come back to Judah, many refused to do so because things weren't bad at all in Persia. There were fine schools, comfy homes, employment, and all the trappings of a good life for the Jews.

Meet and greet with King Xerxes

The king was having auditions. Each night he chose a woman to sleep with him in his bed. If he liked her, cool, she then became part of the palace harem. If not, he kicked her to the curb as a servant in the palace. Yuck. But I suppose being a yaya in the palace was somewhat good.

One day the king chose Esther to try out for queen on a one night stand basis. Esther was quite eager to please the king, so she inquired among his harem what the king liked. Smart gal, right? They were happy to appease her because it made them look good.

It so happened that she did, ahem, please the king greatly, and so he took her as his wife and queen. Ta-da! Her audition had paid off handsomely. Royal treatment. Fine wine and food. Beautiful clothing and more.

A sudden change

But things began to change in due time. It was a law in Persia at that time that no law once made could be retracted. But there was a way around this: make a new law that countered it. Brilliant, right? Sounds like something countries do today.

Now let's keep in mind that Esther and all the ethnic Jews who stayed in Persia for the comfort were secularized rather than religious. This is why we find no mention of God in the book.

At any rate, they preferred their comfort over the salvation of their souls. We can note that this is also true today. Many people live a life of comfort in this world only and fail to be saved and live in eternal comfort.

So one day, a man named Haman came to King Xerxes with what he believed was a great idea. He persuaded the king that a law should be passed on the cool where people could kill all of the Jews! Satan was behind this wicked extermination plan.

But God's 70-year exile was enough punishment and he did not want anymore pain inflicted on the Jews, so he turned the kings mind around. The king passed a law that secretly made it possible for the Jews to be warned of the law that sought to exterminate them.

God still had an interest in His people.

The twist

As it turns out, the Jews were ready for the battle. They defeated their enemy and survived the desired extermination. You can read the full story in the book. It's quite interesting!

The end of the book is where last here about the secularized Jews. The focus thereafter is on the religious Jews.

Lessons

We are all beautiful. We all seek to live our lives comfortably. We all want our enemies to be defeated rather than beset us with misery and problems. But we need to ask ourselves an important question: what should we seek, a life of comfort on this earth only, living like a queen as best we can, or should we seek our eternal comfort in heaven?

"But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15, NIV).

As for me and my house, we too will serve the Lord. I hope you will do the same.