“Who knows but that you have come to a royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) 

Even if you don’t play chess, you understand the basics. To win, you move pieces strategically, in a specific way, and for a specific purpose: capture others; surround the king. If you keep moving pieces around but never capture others, your pieces fail at their designated purpose. 

God is not playing a game with us, but the analogy still works. He has strategically placed each of us where He wants us to be. He’s given us specific functions: child, student, employee, spouse, parent. For many of us, God has not only positioned us but also abundantly blessed us. But if all we do is appropriate those blessings for ourselves (like the knight, we just keep moving in the L-shaped pattern because it’s where we’ve been put, and we like it), we’re moving as God designed us to move, but we’re not completing the work.

Esther, a beautiful young Jewish woman in exile in Persia, is taken into King Xerxes’ harem, is highly favored, and becomes his queen (Esther 2). Esther has it made. Xerxes' palace is beyond splendid (see 1:4-8); she has her own maids and eunuchs (4:4); she has “won the favor of everyone around her” (3:15). Esther is beyond comfortable, but is comfort the purpose God has for her? She will soon find out from her adoptive father Mordecai it is not and, at great risk to herself (“If I perish, I perish” 4:16), she will approach the king unbidden and plead for the Jewish people to be spared annihilation (4:6-8). 

Mordecai pointedly prompts Esther to act: “Who knows but that you have come to a royal position for such a time as this?” (4:14) Likewise, is Someone nudging you to do more than move around the chessboard and, instead, fulfill God’s purpose for you, whether in a classroom, office cubicle, or a volunteer position? Maybe you’re being called to honor Him by effecting some positive change, by witnessing, by speaking up for Him. Could it be risky? Sure. Just ask Esther. Just ask those chess pieces who move about under peril of capture, but remember this: they are guided by someone who has the whole game plan in his head as he steers their path. We have a Someone, too.

God hasn’t put us here - in Chatham County, in a retirement community, in a small group, in a job - just for our own benefit. Enjoy God’s blessings, of course, but ask Him to show what good works He’s called you to do. As Mordecai encouraged Esther, find a godly friend who can encourage you as you seek to do more than just move around as a chess piece. You may not save an entire nation, but your work will be important to the Kingdom nonetheless.