The Next Move is Up to You!
Prayer changes things and prayer changes people. When the prayers have been prayed, and the appropriate action set in motion, guess what – the next move is up to you:
7 Look, I have given you, Queen Esther, Haman’s household because of his vengeful actions against your people. That is also why he hangs on the pole he had made for Mordecai. I have done all I can do; the rest is your responsibility 8 because no order that has been written in the name of the king and sealed with the king’s signet ring can be overturned. So you must write a new order to the Jews to remedy the situation Esther 8:7-8 (The Voice)
The story of Esther is familiar to most of us. Esther, a Jewish orphan raised by her uncle Mordecai was sent to the King’s palace along with many other beautiful virgins when the king made a search for a new queen. Esther became the next queen and you would think "happily ever after" would begin. Not so. Just when Esther got settled and begin to like her new role, here comes her uncle Mordecai with a grim notice that the Jews were ordered to be exterminated. In a dramatic elocution, Mordecai asked Esther, "how to you know that you did not come to the kingdom for such a time as this"? Esther immediately went into gear and in spite of the danger of coming before the King without being sent for, she decided to take the risk, saying, "if I perish, I perish".
To summarize the next events, she went before the kIng and the wicket Haman, enemy of the Jews was put to death, but it did not change the ruling that ordered the Jews to be exterminated. The above passage is the king’s reply to Esther after she besought him to change this ruling. King Ahasuerus had done all he could -he had got rid of the perpetrator and had given Mordecai his powers. The ball was now in Esther’s court. It was up to her to write a new ruling that would cancel the old ruling, but the king could not do it.
It is like that in all of our lives. There comes a point where God has done all He is going to do. We have to roll up our sleeves and get to work ourselves. We have been gifted out of all God’s creation with a excellent brain, agile bodies, and the ability to have dominion over lesser creation. So the next time you’re wondering what the hold-up is to your blessing – check the list, has God moved in your behalf and set before you an open door, with the net move being up to you?