Exquisite Excellence

A highlight of each week is the 9-10 grade Bible study each week. It's a fun group... great group of girls and always interesting to hear their perspectives, their understandings... how and what God is teaching them as they look at a portion of Scripture. There is no doubt that I learn as much and probably more than they do. This semester, we are studying through women in the Bible - last week we looked at Esther.

While Ruth remains my all-time favorite woman in the Bible... I also love the story of Esther, an exquisitely beautiful girl thrust into an impossibly difficult situation because she was God's choice, the perfect person for that time, that place, not because she sought that position. I love Mordecai's faith - how he could confidently see God's hand and His provision, even in the midst some very dark moments. I love Esther's submission and sacrifice - even when in the midst, she couldn't see God's hand directing and upholding all... She had to be terrified.... I love that God gives us stories like this, where we see Romans 8.28-30 ("And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified."), and Ephesians 2.10 ("For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."), lived out by a real someone, in real life.

My favorite moment of Bible study last week, however, came when I asked the girls what attitude or attribute they saw in Esther that they wanted to try and apply in their lives the next day. One of the girls replied, "Excellence..." And then she went on to explain what she meant~ Esther was the queen, which obviously gave her some advantages that an average person would not have had. Yet she fall back on her position and those advantages. She didn't fast and pray for a single day... she did for three and asked others to join her. She didn't just wear any old clothes when she approached her husband, the King... the dressed in and looked her very best. She didn't just blurt out her complaint to the King... she offered to prepare a banquet (not just a meal) and lavishly serve him, first... which she then she did all over again, a second time.

Reflecting on this thought has led me to ponder, "What might happen if I chose to approach all that I do, from changing diapers, washing dishes and hanging laundry to writing/translating radio scripts, teaching Bible studies and leading French School Committee meetings..., committed to scrupulous excellence - not for man's reward or praise, but out of a desire to serve, so that God receives the praise and all reward? "

Nothing revolutionary or new here... but a good reminder that I need right now... as the thermometer rises, my to do list is grows and the time remaining to accomplish several goals shrinks. What a great flesh and blood example of the following Biblical principles: "Let all that you do be done in love" (1 Cor 16.14), and "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10.31-32).