Now there was in the citadel of Susa a Jew of the tribe of
Benjamin, named Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, who
had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,
among those taken captive with Jehoiachin king of Judah. Mordecai had a cousin
named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor
mother. This young woman, who was also known as Esther, had a lovely figure and
was beautiful. Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and
mother died. Esther
2:5-7
In a perfect world, a person would bend over backwards to
help another person, whether it was taking in an orphan, befriending an
outcast, or adopting a stray, and in return their lives would be blessed and
problem-free. But, here’s the deal, whether you’re raising kids or cats, they
will make noise, throw up on your carpet, go #2 on your sofa, make a mess, cost
a lot of money, and cause heartache anyway…oh, and so will the cats.
Noble causes don’t always reap positive rewards.
Hadassah, aka Esther, had nowhere to go, so her cousin
Mordecai took her in. He raised Esther as his own daughter. He gave her
everything that she needed to have a good life. I would imagine that Mordecai
had hopes and dreams for Esther: marry a nice Jewish boy, settle down, and
start a family, and maybe even return to the Promised Land one day.
Those dreams ended the day that the king began to enlarge
his harem and “interview” candidates for queen. This wasn’t what Mordecai had
hoped for his adopted daughter. A dictator’s edict ended all that Mordecai had
dreamed for Esther. All of his efforts appeared to be for naught.
All of us have taken on causes that never really played out
the way that we thought. Sometimes when you befriend the friendless person at
work, instead of receiving gratitude, you’re stabbed in the back. Then, you
understand why that person was friendless.
Life is not fair. Most of the undertakings in life,
especially the heroic ones, do not always have happy endings or don’t become made
for TV movies on the Hallmark Channel (No offense to Hallmark. They paid for
half of my college).
So, here’s the big question that you are going to hate me
for asking: Do we do things to make ourselves feel good or do we do things out
of obedience to God? If we do things merely to feel good, then when things
don’t work out, we wonder why we got into it in the first place. If we do
things out of obedience and fall on rough times, often we also question why we
got involved, but we trust that God has a plan. Regardless of how we feel, what
others think, what others are doing, or even what we think, obedience to God’s
plan is far more valuable than any reward or acclaim that we might otherwise
receive.
Where are you becoming weary in well-doing? What are you
about to quit or escape from? What does God say? Even if you got in it for the
wrong reasons, you’re in it. How do you need to obey God today?
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