Do not let your limites restrict your vision

"[Esther ...] gained his favor and kindness ... Then he [the king] put on his head the royal crown and made it reign ..." Esther 2.17

God will not only use your gifts to accomplish your destiny, but also your limitations.

Sometimes what appears to be a catastrophe in your life is actually part of a much broader plan.

Let's take Esther's example again. Several size limits made her perfect for God's role. She was an orphan who had been adopted by Mordecai; As a Jew living in Persia, she was a minority ; And she was single. A single woman in a male-dominated society had no rights.

God used all these obstacles, as well as his beauty, intelligence and personality, to fulfill his destiny. Think a little : if she had been a married woman, she would not have become queen. If she had not been a minority, she would not have been concerned about the Jews and what was going to happen to them.

Sometimes what appears to be a catastrophe in your life is actually part of a much broader plan. But you will never accomplish your destiny if you spend your time pitying yourself on your fate.

Esther could have said : "If only I had not been chosen, if only I was not Jewish, if only I was someone else !" Many people react that way. They live in bitterness and spend their time looking at others, saying, "How good it must be to be in their place !"

With such an attitude, you will never accomplish your destiny. You have to realize that unpleasant obstacles on your path are often God-wanted opportunities to change things.

It is difficult to realize this when one is plunged into suffering. Look at Job. He was the richest man on earth, when God permitted everything to be taken from him-his family, his fortune, and his health.

And when Job asked God the reason of all his misfortunes, God kept silence. "Has he to do to the north ?" "No, I do not see it." Is he hiding in the south ? I do not notice anything, yet he knows the way I am. Has only an idea, who will change it, what he has desired, he has realized, and he accomplishes for me what he has decided" (13-14).

Maybe everything is going wrong for you right now and you do not understand why. But God knows it. Trust him fully !

An encouragement for today

Nothing is due to chance in your life. Pleasures and sufferings, openings and obstacles, God can make use of all this. There is nothing he can not use for your good, if you give it to him.

Rick Warren

Source (The Thought of the Day)