This is the fourth installment of a series of posts I will be writing on the book Voices of the True Woman Movement: A Call to the Counter-Revolution
by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. I received a complimentary copy from Revive Our Hearts ministry just for sharing my thoughts on each chapter.
Chapter 4: For Such a Time As This by Nancy Leigh DeMoss
I finished reading this chapter three days ago, but I didn't have time to write down my thoughts until today. As I looked back over the notes I jotted in the margins and all the paragraphs I had highlighted and in light of the uncertainties of my life these days, it is clear to me how much I needed to be refreshed today in the truths that are contained in these select pages.
You see, I struggle to be a true woman -- a woman who is surrendered to God and His purposes. I shrink back from suffering and keep asking "why?" every time I'm caught off guard by some new and fearful circumstance that I didn't see coming. Yet God continually takes me back to His Word and His truth to show me how He wants me to respond and what He wants me to be.
Being a true woman means being courageous in the midst of uncertainty, believing that God is fully in control and working His purposes behind the scenes in the realm of the Unseen.
As Nancy recounts the story of Esther from scripture, we learn that there are two realms. There is the physical realm and circumstances that are seen, and there is the spiritual realm where God is working His good plan behind the scenes in amazing and mysterious ways that are past finding out. It comes back to what Pastor John Piper says, "In every situation and circumstance of your life, God is always doing a thousand different things that you cannot see and you do not know." Oh, how I must grab that statement and run with it!
I won't rehearse the story of Esther for you. If you need to refresh yourself in the history, you can click over and read the Book of Esther here. The fact is that if any woman had reason to shrink back, lock herself in her room, and cry her eyes out it was Esther. She was taken from her home and family, forced to be queen to a bully of a man, had to keep her nationality a secret, and by the deception of an evil man at the king's right hand, her Jewish people were threatened with death.
Rather than falling to pieces in fear, Esther's spirit was bolstered when her cousin Mordecai sent her word, saying that she may have been placed exactly where she was "for such a time as this." Esther took courage and, though it could have meant imminent death, approached the king about the plight of her Jewish nation and exposed the evil man, Haman, and his deceptive plan to wipe out her people. God moved and worked His plan through Esther, and her nation was saved from death.
If we believe in the sovereignty of God, we can say the same of ourselves as Mordecai exhorted Esther. We have been put exactly where we are, even with every challenge and heartache we face, for such a time as this. All we can see is, well, the seen. If we look with spiritual eyes, though, we can see the Unseen, and that's where God wants us to focus.
When we choose to be a true woman, believing that God is working in a thousand ways for good that we cannot see, God can do any and every thing with our seemingly puny lives, even when the circumstances are painful and we can't imagine what kind of good could come of them.
Please, Lord... help me to become a true woman by surrendering to the seen and believe that You are working in a thousand different ways for my good in the Unseen.
by David Harvey, and I really am enjoying it. Learning new things.