Esther took a risk to fulfill a greater purpose than her personal safety.
1. Describe leaving your own comfort zone. How do you handle it?
* My comfort zone was "abandoned" when I first started teaching others about training up biblically-able children. Prayer, study, hard work, and experience helped me be more comfortable speaking before strangers.
* My lesson is: be what God wants me to be where he wants me to be it.
* God uses those times as opportunities to increase my dependence on Him… Definitely worth the initial discomfort.
* Times I have really felt out of place are when I've met friends from my past, before becoming a Christian. At first, I felt paralyzed. Ashamed of what I was, and wanting somehow to communicate "whose" I am now. But after a quick prayer, God gave me the words to say. Now many years later, they do know and are amazed that I have remained faithful.
* When I am in unfamiliar territory, I try not to get in the way of the Spirit giving me the courage to stay in control of myself, the patience to wait for the Lord’s direction, and wisdom to be able to discern the truth from a lie.
* Now, when I look back I can clearly see how God gave me those times of loneliness so that I would learn to trust Him when I had no one else, but that He also put special people in my life at just the right time.
* I am a very quiet and reserved person, but I feel convicted that God has called me out of my comfort zone to share his news with others. While going to live in other countries was a challenge to my comfort zone, I am thankful for the opportunities to share God's riches.
2. What did you learn from Esther?
* Esther was able to carry out her purpose without "demanding her rights" as society pushes us to do today, but instead followed a very thoughtful, prayerful, submissive plan to fill her responsibility.
* It’s not always easy to understand why we are in a certain place or situation, but if we can trust that God knows what He’s doing, we can also trust that He’s capable of and desiring to use us
just where we are, just the way we are.
* I've always loved Esther's statement "if I perish, I perish". I so want to have that attitude in my life - to live my life in a godly way, and take risks for the Lord, and “if I perish, I perish”.
* It's a privilege to get to be a part of what He's doing. Knowing this helps me to want to do His will more.
Esther took a risk to fulfill a greater purpose than her personal safety.
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