For Such a Time as This

October Overview

October asked what a leader actually does with what has been entrusted to them. September spent a month on grace and mercy extended outward to people who had not earned it. Stewardship is the question that follows. If so much of what a leader holds was given rather than earned, the work is to tend it faithfully for as long as they are the one holding it.

We started with where stewardship begins. A garden with two instructions attached, work it and keep it. The earth and everyone on it belonging to the LORD, which includes every person a leader oversees. An earth genuinely given to human hands, with real authority and real consequences. Strangers and sojourners holding land they could use but never sell in perpetuity. A warning against the sentence spoken in the heart, my power and the might of my hand. A platform that could not be received unless it was given. And an open hand that blessed the name of the LORD while grieving a loss.

Then time, the one entrusted resource that cannot be earned back. A prayer to know the measure of our days. A plan held as a request rather than a guarantee. Autumn plowing that decides a harvest months before anyone goes looking for it. An ant with no officer over her. Work done with your might inside a window that closes. One necessary thing protected from a long list of good ones. And rest called for in the middle of the work rather than after the collapse.

Then resources. Knowing the real condition of the flock rather than the reported condition. Wages earned and dropped into a bag with holes. An ox that brings the mess and the harvest in the same animal. Fragments gathered in a season of plenty, when nothing forced the care. Edges left standing in the field on purpose. Wealth that sprouts wings while a leader is looking right at it. And generosity that is ready before the moment arrives.

Then people, which is where stewardship costs the most. Jacob absorbing twenty years of losses that were never his fault. Wages paid before the sun sets, because the worker is counting on it. Good not withheld when the power to give it is already in hand. The same share for the one who stayed with the baggage. Confidences kept when sharing them would have been useful. The rare person genuinely concerned for someone else's welfare. And a leader spent on people rather than spending them.

We closed with position. A steward carving himself a tomb with access that came with the job. A man examined by enemies who found nothing, because he was faithful. And a queen told plainly that her position would not protect her and that the deliverance would come either way.

November turns to thankfulness. Not gratitude as a mood that arrives when results are good, but thankfulness as a practice a leader keeps on purpose, including in the years when there is little to show. A leader who has spent a month accounting for what was entrusted to them is in a position to notice how much of it was given in the first place.

The year will finish in Advent, preparing for what is to come. That is the work of every leader who has ever had to get a house, a team or a family ready for something they could see arriving and could not control.

Scripture

Esther 4:13–14 (ESV)

Reflection

Mordecai's message does two things at once. It tells Esther that her position will not protect her, and it tells her that deliverance will come with or without her. Both are uncomfortable, and both are true of nearly every leadership position.

Relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place. The work does not depend on her. That strips the flattery out of the request and leaves the real question, which is not whether she is essential but whether she will spend what she was given while she still has it.

Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this. The position arrived before the moment did. She did not plan for this and could not have, and now the thing she happens to hold is exactly what the moment requires.

Stewardship turns out to be that specific. A leader is holding access, relationships, a budget, a platform or a seat at a particular table, and sooner or later something arrives that only that combination can address. Keeping silent is also a decision about what the position was for.

Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape is the part leaders skip. Keeping your head down inside a position feels safer than spending it. Here it would not have been safer at all, and the month closes on that note rather than on a comfortable one.

Practical Application

• Name the thing you are holding that the current moment actually requires.
• Consider what keeping quiet would cost, including what it would cost you.
• Spend some part of your position on something that will not benefit you.

Takeaways

• The position arrives before the moment does, which is why faithfulness has to be built in advance.
• Staying quiet inside a position is a decision about what the position was for.

Closing Thought

The palace was never the protection she thought it was.