More Than A Mundane Existence

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance shall arise
for the Jews from elsewhere, but you and your father’s house will perish.
And who knows but that you have come to the kingdom
for such a time as this and for this very occasion?”

– Esther 4:14 (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition)

God always asks us to elevate our perspective by diving wholeheartedly into this relationship with Jesus Christ, the basis and the crux of our faith. As we get to better know His voice, heart, and mind, and as we accept His free gift of the Holy Spirit, our hearts are made of flesh, and we are given the mind of Christ and renewed by His word, we can move in alignment with God’s Spirit and do His perfect will on Earth.

Sometimes we can look at our lives and wonder why we are where we are. We may look at the ordinary circumstances surrounding us and think that our existence is mundane, insignificant, or disconnected from anything greater than ourselves, while at the same time, we have a deep inner longing for spiritual depth. Oftentimes, the place we consider ordinary is, in actuality, the place where God is positioning us for something eternal.

What if what appears mundane to us is situated within a story that is much greater than what we can currently see?

Looking at the book of Esther in the Bible, we see a narrative of redemption of a woman who was overlooked and abandoned early on in her life. Esther, a Jewish woman originally named Hadassah, was living in the Persian Kingdom of that time, where her people, the Jews, were living as an exiled minority group in a godless nation. Her status as an orphan, a woman, and a Jew during that time period meant that she occupied a vulnerable position within the society around her. From a young age, she was instructed to hide her origin, concealing an important part of her identity to survive within a society where her difference could put her at risk.

Esther could have battled with the thought process of, “I didn’t choose to be born into this; why is this happening to me?” I know this has been one of my own thought processes before.

Yet God’s faithfulness to her and her people was palpable throughout the book of Esther, despite God never being directly mentioned. What may have appeared to be an ordinary or even painful existence was situated within something far greater than Esther could see. Her position in the palace was not meaningless, but rather was a strategic move by the Lord God.

She had come to the kingdom for such a time as this.

This is one of the beautiful mysteries of God’s providence: sometimes He is working in ways that we cannot immediately recognize. The mundane does not mean meaningless. The hidden does not mean forgotten. The place we find ourselves today may be connected to something God is preparing us for that we cannot yet understand, but God will unravel at His appointed time.

Esther’s journey from exile to royalty reflects, in part, the journey we take from being orphaned outside of Jesus to becoming a daughter or son of the King and being dressed in His righteousness. Scripture tells us that those who belong to Christ have been adopted into the family of God. Outside of God, we are without covering, so we cover our nakedness and our vulnerabilities with garments of shame, heaviness, bitterness, and pride. We harden our hearts, building protective walls around the core of what we believe is left of us, convincing ourselves that these defenses will keep us safe from any further harm.

Yet the very things we believe are protecting us can become the things that keep us from becoming who God is calling us to be. The enemy can convince us that these defenses are our protection, when they can actually become prisons that keep our hearts from receiving the character of Christ.

But God gives us something different to wear.

“Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves,
you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy,
kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Make allowance for each other’s faults,
and forgive anyone who offends you.
Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 
Above all, clothe yourselves with love,
which binds us all together in perfect harmony. 
And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts.
For as members of one body you are called to live in peace.
And always be thankful.”

– Colossians 3:12-15 (New Living Translation)

The spiritual clothing God gives us is not meant to make us appear superior to anyone else. It is meant to make us look more like Christ. We are called to put on tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love, and the peace of Christ. This is the clothing of someone who has surrendered their life to God, not the armor of someone trying to prove their own importance.

One of my favorite sayings is, “God is no respecter of persons,” meaning God does not elevate someone or give them favor because of the position they hold on Earth, but rather He chooses whom He chooses according to the plans He wants to unfold according to His perfect will. God has us on a mission to save souls, so when God calls you, it isn’t because you are better than the next person, but rather it’s because you made yourself available to answer the call, becoming the chosen.

“Many are called, but few are chosen.”

As the Holy Spirit uncovers the fullness of this mystery in God’s kingdom, I do know that Scripture shows God’s people responding to God’s invitation requires surrender. I believe that those chosen souls are those whose spirits have chosen Jesus. Which is why stepping into the God-given identity He has for us means surrendering things we once found comfort in, because our mind, will, and emotions are what our souls are made from.

Many people prefer the darkness because it is comfortable, while the light holds us accountable for who we are becoming. If you value integrity and character more than comfort, choosing God becomes something destined.

There is also a difference between knowing that you are chosen by God and believing that being chosen makes you inherently superior to others. The language of being a “chosen one” can sound similar to the language the enemy uses to build pride in people and give them an anti-Christ complex. This is unlike God, who transforms us to become more like Him, making us co-heirs with Christ while He remains on the throne of our hearts. Being chosen by God is not an invitation to self-exaltation, but an invitation to surrender, obedience, and transformation.

God calls us because He has purposed us to do His will in the specific calling He has created and destined each of us to be part of, bringing Heaven to Earth. When we see God’s powerful plan in action through the eyes of faith, we begin to see how necessary each individual in the body of Christ is for the work that the Lord is doing on Earth. Esther did not have to become someone else to fulfill what God had placed before her; she had to become courageous enough to surrender herself to the purpose for which she had been positioned.

In the same way, we do not need to compete with someone else’s calling to prove that our own life has significance. We do not need to compare our position, gifts, timing, or our circumstances to another person’s. What looks mundane to us may be the very place where God is preparing, refining, and positioning us for such a time as this, just as He did with Queen Esther.

Seeing God’s powerful plan in action through the eyes of faith awakens us to how necessary each individual in the body of Christ is for the work that the Lord is doing on Earth, leading us to organically desire to drop comparison and competition to embrace something better: God’s grace.

God’s grace reminds us that being chosen was never about being better. His grace empowers our inner spirit man to embrace the call on our lives, which leads to our souls’ willingness to grow in saying yes to the One who called us.

And perhaps that is part of what it means to live more than a mundane existence—not necessarily living a life that looks extraordinary to the world, but allowing God to make even the ordinary places of our lives meaningful through obedience to Him. We may not always understand why we are where we are, and God may not always reveal right away what He is doing in our lives while He is doing it, but we can trust that our lives are not meaningless simply because they feel ordinary. This reality is a reminder that the meaning of our lives is not found in the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Esther could not see the entirety of her story nor the effects it would have while she was living it. Neither can we. But the invitation remains the same: to trust God with where He has placed us, surrender what He asks us to surrender, and faithfully walk in what He has placed before us.

So I leave you with this: Where have you let the enemy use your circumstances to convince you that your life is meaningless? Where are the places you called mundane and unimportant that God has been using to minister to you? And lastly, what if maybe, just maybe, you have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this?