The Esther Element

Even before God’s promise to return Joe to me, He called me to be there in ministry to him “for a time such as this,” quoting this line from Esther’s story. My entire journey didn’t just end with Esther, on Purim, but it started with this call from God to be like Esther. Because of this, I have always loved her story, as it is one that God has used mightily in my life when it comes to understanding the power of a testimony. For God called Esther to shine, positioning her to be a vessel for His light. It was fitting then that her name meant “star." Her story is the only one in the Bible that does not mention the name of God or Jesus. Instead, she was the Star of her story, yet through her story we, without a doubt, see God. Her story is a true testament to God’s glorifying nature because it serves as a bridge through which we clearly see His hand at work. We see how He orchestrated her life to save His people, all for the purpose of bringing forth Christ.

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Well, like Esther, God created us to also be Stars in our own unique stories, stories that He longs to use, like hers, as testaments to also save. For you see, as even Joe will testify about, what truly began to draw him back to me was my testimony. He accepted my invitation to read it to him and it was in the midst of my testifying that his life also began to change. Christ shone through my story, using it to form a bridge that led Joe not only into a deeper relationship with Jesus but also back to me. God used the light of my testimony, and my willingness to shine it forth in faith, to summon back my bridegroom.  

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God has always called His people to testify, to be testaments in all they do. In fact, 40 out of the 66 books in the Bible are named after people, other Stars in God’s ever-unfolding story. God has aways used His people to shine forth His Word. And I don’t know about you, but I am so glad that they took the time to testify, to record their stories for future generations. Well, God’s call on our lives remains the same. We are next in line, a truth God truly revealed to me the day I leaned that my middle name also means “star.” From generation to generation, like them, every one of us has a unique story to tell, a unique Bridge Story. As it says in Acts 14:17, God has not left Himself without testimony, never has and never will. For, He is the Living Word, able to be experienced in real-time, and because of this, each of our lives are meant to be the continuation of His story. We, like Esther, and all that have gone before, need to continue to aid the next generation with our testimonies “so that a people not yet born will praise the LORD (Ps. 102:18b).” We need to continue the bridge building or the discipleship making.

 

Those that wrote the Bible were simply writing about themselves, or those they knew, experiencing God and Jesus, sometimes in real-time or at least within their lifetime. We see in the Book of Acts, that after the disciples spent a season with Jesus, having been called away from their primary source of income as fishermen, to follow Jesus on a journey of transformation, started testifying, truly fishing for people. They testified about Jesus, which was simply the act of sharing their stories, their experiences of Jesus which were not that old. For people “took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13b). There were times when they referred to the Torah, or portions of the Old Testament, but usually this was in correlation with what they were sharing, to enhance their message, to align their testimonies with older ones, to bring even more proof and power to their witness. They very rarely simply quoted Old Testament Scripture to do the sole converting.

 

Yet, are we not to follow in their example? Are we likewise testifying in real-time? Are we sharing our experiences of Jesus as they happen or even just years later? No. I wasn’t. Which is why God stopped me in my tracks and said that I could serve the lost better with His true purpose for me, by discovering my own testimony that He longed to align with the older ones. For, like most of us, I was solely trying to convert people by sharing only older stories, the testimonies of people like the disciples. Don’t get me wrong, God can and still does use these stories and wants us to proclaim them. However, what if we did share these stories but in correlation with our own personal, real-time stories? What if we aligned our newer testimonies with older ones, to bring even more proof and power to our witness as well. Can you imagine the impact? They caught their fish. We have new fish to catch.

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Jesus is still alive. He is still moving in our midst. He is the Living Word and desires to still be experienced in real-time so that the world will know that we also have been with Jesus, just like those first men and women. He still longs to use us to save, to be His hands and feet and voice, to use our lives and stories to be a bridge that leads others to Him, just like He used the disciple’s stories and Esther’s story, and many others to be a bridge for us. For, when we share how Christ has transformed our lives, others are inspired to seek His love and grace forming new stories of their own, testimonies that will literally have the power to save. They hold this power because Jesus is the Word of our testimonies and when we experience Him and then share these stories, He works through us to change lives. He forms a bridge from our heart to theirs and walks across. It is all about Christ living in and through us, the Living Word, the true Bridge that connects us all, past, and present. The true Fisher of all nations. The true Light that shines.

 

If you haven’t gathered yet, a testimony is more than a conversion story, the story of how someone came to know Jesus. Although this story is important and should be shared, too many stories stop there, and thus sadly, so do many relationships with the Lord. Too many people truly stop experiencing Jesus once they come to know Him. They just go through the motions and rely on the stories of others. In reality however, our story of conversion should simply be the starting off point, or story, to a lifetime of stories and experiences of Jesus that tell of how He is still moving in and through our lives. Personally, my conversion story isn’t very exciting. In fact, I used to think that I didn’t have a testimony and struggled with this for years, especially as a missionary. This alone is a testament to God, of how He is now using me to invite others through my testimony to testify. For, as you have heard, He went on to give me an amazing on-going testimony filled with stories that have nothing to do with my conversion story, but simply a life filled with experiencing Him on a day-to-day basis through my personal relationship with Him.    

 

In fact, God has continued to fill my life with so many stories, supernatural stories, that for years I was afraid to speak out and share them, mostly because no one else around me had such stories or at least shared them. But guess what? A new time in history, in His Story, is before us, for a time such as this, a time when stories like mine will not be unique or strange. For God longs to write, always has. He longs to reveal to you as well that you are a Star in a unique story that can impact lives, a story that will reveal that God is still alive and moving in our midst, something this world desperately needs now more than ever, especially as darker times unfold.