“Perhaps you were created for a time such as this?” – Esther 4:14
In 2014 my family was recruited to Pocatello by a dear friend in order for my wife to join his wife in practice. We moved here in July with our then 4-month-old son. Late one night in October, we unexpectedly received a call from my friend and he asked to speak to my wife. He was in the hospital with acute pancreatitis caused by an aggressive form of cancer, and it was his request that my wife be a support system for his wife and kids. My friend fought as best as anyone could be expected to under his circumstances. He passed away eight months after that. Though he was not very religious at that point, I often told him over lunch that God had brought us to this place and time to be a support system for him and his family. I truly believed that.
Madison Cawthorn is currently the youngest serving member of Congress from North Carolina’s 11th district. He was elected to Congressman Mark Meadows seat when Meadows left to serve as the Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump. He turned 25 years old the month before the 2020 election. Most recently, Cawthorn made press headlines when he stated in a podcast interview that he was shocked to arrive in Washington DC, only to be invited to orgies by his elder peers and to watch politicians he once respected doing drugs in front of him. Cawthorn has frequently cited Esther from the Old Testament of the Bible as a part of the reason he ran for Congress. On this, he is wise beyond his years.
The Old Testament Book of Esther recounts a story from the fifth century BC during the reign of Xerxes the Great. Xerxes ruled over all of the Middle East from modern day Sudan to India. In this story, King Xerxes calls forth women from across his kingdom from which to choose a queen. Esther, whom he crowns his queen, is the adopted cousin of Mordecai, a Jewish subject in Xerxes kingdom. When Mordecai learns of a plot by Haman, a nobleman in the king’s court, to exterminate all of the Jews in the kingdom, he implores to Esther that she was placed in Xerxes palace for a time such as this in order to save her people. Perhaps this idiom rings true for us today and God has put us in this time and place for precisely the challenges of our time?
Every week when I sit to commit ideas to written words, I think about the type of world that I want my children to inherit. I want them to inherit a world that pursues a Biblical idea of truth and justice so that they will have the same opportunities in life that most of us are afforded today. I cannot watch us veer down a path to self destruction and look my children in the eyes and tell them that I did nothing to preserve God’s blessing for them. Don’t Do Nothing! This has been the plea of retired special forces Sergeant Jeremy Brown, an unjustly imprisoned volunteer contractor on security detail on January 6th, 2021.
Much of the public knows that we are making serious cultural and political mistakes and have felt the call to get involved in some way, that we might change our trajectory. In my own somewhat apolitical family, they have dusted off their boots and joined the fight in the ways in which they felt equipped. My mother has become quite active in her local county Republican Party in Georgia. In Pennsylvania, my father has been in regular communication with his elected officials and is currently looking into the local precinct strategy to help steer better candidates through to office. As the son of a truck driver, he also made several trips to Washington DC to support the truckers convoy protesting COVID mandates. In Tennessee, my mother-in-law has volunteered to be a poll worker and is in monthly training for the elections. In Illinois, my sister has taken a volunteer position as the Communications Director for the state Libertarian Party.
The story of Esther serves as a reminder to God’s people that despite the obstacles that we may encounter, we were uniquely equipped for the challenges that we face at the present. It is a call to action and boldness to face down the giants of our time, whether they be creeping totalitarianism, global pandemic, famine, or war. We’re not all made for public service, but we are all made for a time such as this. In whatever ways you’ve been equipped, your country is calling you to a spiritual and ideological war. You didn’t declare it, but nonetheless, you must respond.
Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash
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