Esther by Ann Voskamp

I read www.aholyexperience.com and Ann Voskamp, a spiritual mentor to me through her books, went to Africa to meet Katie Davis www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com another person I call a hero. I copied some of what Ann wrote about it. Please share it. It is powerful.

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I am Esther in the palace. (But now) I am sitting at a Compassion project in Africa, sitting with all the Mordecais in sackcloth outside the palace gate. We’re the ones inside the palace gate. All I can hear pounding in my head is Mordecai’s message to Esther:

“Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all your people suffer. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief will arise from some other place, but you and yours will die.” There are a thousand ways for your soul to die, to be the living dead.

You can look into eyes and hear the whisper from those outside the gate: “You’ve got to use the life you’ve been given to give others life. If your life isn’t about giving relief — you don’t get real life. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?” You have got to use your position inside the gate for those outside the gate – or you’re in the position of losing everything. There are a thousand ways to be the living dead.

If you have any food in your fridge, any clothes in your closet, any small roof, rented or owned, over your head, you are richer than 75% of the rest of the world. If you have anything saved in the bank, any bills in your wallet, any spare change in a jar, you are one of the top 8% wealthiest people in the world. We are the Esther’s living inside the gate.

You are where you are for such a time as this – not to gain anything — but to risk everything. You are where you are for such a time as this — not to make an impression — but to make a difference.

You could have been the one outside of the gate. You could have been the one with the Lord’s Resistance Army slitting your child’s throat in the middle of the night, you could been the one born into a slum, raped without a hope, you could be the one born into AIDS, into starvation, into lives of wild Christ-less desperation. The reason you are inside the gate for such a time as this – is to risk your life for those outside the gate. If I perish, I perish.

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Dear North American Church, After a Sunday morning in Africa, you don’t look the same to me. You look hungry. Hungrier than anything I’ve seen in Africa.

That one woman with no shoes and no husband and 7 kids, walk up to the front of the church and put this bag of beans into the basket as her love offering to God – my heart ached this raw conviction and I could feel it with you, North American Church, what you really wanted: You’re hungry to love like this. You are hungry for the uncomfortable.

You are hungry to sacrifice your Starbucks coffees, your NetFlix subscription, your dinners out for something More. You’re hungry for more than vanilla services, and sweetened programs, and watered down lives.

You’re famished for More, for hard and holy things, for some real meat for your starved soul, some real dirt under your fingernails, some real sacrifice in your veins – some real Jesus in your blood and in your hands and in your feet.

And I’m looking into the eyes of all these African children, all these hungry, dancing eyes and the Compassion teacher’s literally dancing under the tree: “You all get to give!”  It’s not just the rich who get to give – it’s all those who give who get to be rich. You don’t wait until you have more before you give to God – you give now so you get to become more in God. It’s only the people who give sacrificially who get to live richly.

It is hard for me to sing with them– when I’m living like this – and my brothers and sisters are living like that. When too many North Americans diet for a hobby, and too many Africans die for a meal.  When our churches have building budgets and our sisters have dying children. We aren’t playing games here. If God is real, if the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is really on the throne, if we are all going to see our Jesus King face to face, soon and very soon – then there’s a whole lot of us who are wild to change things soon.  Now. For such a time as Now. 

I am standing in Africa and there’s a whole Esther Generation and it is us who want hard and holy things because we want more than hollow lives. There’s a whole Esther Generation and it is us who want our children to know the More Life, a life more than self-focus and cell phones, more than iphones, itunes, ipads and iLove, who want them to know the More Life of loving the least, the lonely and the lost and tasting the joy of God.

I am standing in Africa and there’s a whole Esther Generation and it is us who are done with easy, who say to the North American Church: Be concerned for the poor – but be no less concerned for us rich who claim not to be rich so we can excuse ourselves from giving.

Be concerned for the poor – but no less concerned for us who have done just enough to assuage our consciences, just enough to pat ourselves on the back, but not enough that we’ve ever felt sacrifice.  Be concerned for the poor – but be no less concerned for us who aren’t — because someday we will face Christ.

I am standing in Africa and you can hear the whole North American Church, rising up, crying out: What if caring for the poor was more than just caring about easing our consciences? What if caring for the poor meant feeling sacrifice for the poor?  What if we weren’t really feeling care for the poor – until we were really feeling sacrifice for them?

North American Church, it is time: We are all done with no-risk, no-sacrifice, no-point lives. It is time: We are all done with the drug of comfortable and dare to live the dream of uncomfortable. It is time: We’re all hungry for uncomfortable because we’re hungry for God – and He is outside of our comfort zones. This. Is. What. Faith. Is.

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If we’ve really welcomed Christ into our lives – it means our lives are evidence that we’ve welcomed the strangers and the neglected and the outcasts. The Esther Generation lives it and the North American church is hungry for something as authentic and organic as hospitality: Don’t start with a program. Start with a plate.

The radical practice of hospitality begins with each child, each knock, each phone call: Every interruption of the day is a manifestation of Christ. There are no interruptions in a day. There are only manifestations of Christ. One of Katie’s daughters had whispered it:

“Mommy, if Jesus comes to live inside my heart, will I explode?”

And Katie had said —“No!” and then —“Yes, if Jesus comes to live in your heart, you will explode… That is exactly what we should do if Jesus comes to live inside our hearts. We will explode with love, with compassion, with hurt for those who are hurting, and with joy for those who rejoice. We will explode with a desire to be more, to be better, to be close to the One who made us.”