The Risk She Did Not Have to Take

“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” — Esther 4:16 (ESV)

“If I perish, I perish.”

It is easy to read those words as bravery and move on. But sit with them for a moment. Esther was not being dramatic. She was being accurate. The law was real. The risk was real. Approaching the king without a summons carried the penalty of death, and Esther had not been summoned in thirty days. She had no guarantee of the golden sceptre. She had no prophecy telling her she would survive. She had Mordecai’s framework, that perhaps she had come for such a time as this, and she had the fast of three days she was asking her people to pray through with her. And she had a decision to make.

Notice what she did not do. She did not wait for a sign. She did not ask for a vision confirming the outcome. She did not demand a promise of her personal safety before she stepped forward. She made a decision in the presence of genuine uncertainty, which is the actual shape of most of the courageous decisions faith ever produces.

There is a version of faith that waits for absolute certainty before moving. That wants the outcome guaranteed before the risk is taken. That needs the sceptre extended before it walks through the door. Esther’s faith was not that version. Her faith was: I believe that God has positioned me here for this moment. I cannot see what will happen when I walk in. I am going to walk in anyway.

The people God most uses in scripture are rarely the ones who received advance assurance of the outcome. They are the ones who stepped into the unknown because obedience and purpose demanded it. Noah did not know if the flood was coming. Abraham did not know where he was going. Esther did not know if she was walking out of that throne room alive.

Today, what is the decision that is waiting for you, the one you have been postponing because you cannot see the outcome? Perhaps the waiting is not wisdom. Perhaps it is the opposite of Esther’s words. If I perish, I perish is the language of someone who has decided that the purpose is worth the risk. What would you do if you decided the same?

Prayer

Father, give me the courage to step into what you are asking without a guaranteed outcome. I release the need to see the end before I take the first step. Where you are calling me forward, let me say: if I perish, I perish. In Jesus’ name, amen.