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Called for This Moment – The Formed Future · Still, Here

0:01
SPEAKER_00: This is still here, a quiet moment to remember what is true.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Listen to these words from the book of Esther, chapter 4, verse 14.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: But you and your father's house will perish.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Who knows if you haven't come to the kingdom for such a time as this.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: There are moments when we look back over our lives and recognize
0:37
SPEAKER_00: that many separate threads were being gathered long
0:41
SPEAKER_00: before we understood what they were becoming.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: A skill learned years ago.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: A relationship that opened a door.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: A disappointment that changed our direction.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: A season that seemed wasted at the time.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: A tool we learned to use almost casually.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: A wound that taught us compassion.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Then, one day, those pieces begin to meet in the same place.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: We realize we have reached a kind of fullness of time.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai speaks that possibility to Esther.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: She has not chosen the crisis facing her people.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: She did not arrange the circumstances that placed her in the palace.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Yet she arrived at the moment when her position,
1:35
SPEAKER_00: her voice,
1:36
SPEAKER_00: her courage, and the need around her suddenly belonged in the same sentence.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Who knows if you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
1:48
SPEAKER_00: That question does not mean every difficulty was secretly arranged to make us important.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: It does not tell us that we are the indispensable person in the story.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Mordecai is clear that deliverance does not depend on Esther alone.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: But her participation matters.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: That is a healthier way to think about calling.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Vocation is larger than career.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: It includes the way you love, create, care,
2:23
SPEAKER_00: serve, influence, work, speak, encourage, build, and occupy your place in the world.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we spend so much time wishing the times were different that we fail
2:40
SPEAKER_00: to notice the life God has actually placed in our hands.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: We may spend so much time wishing the times were different that we fail to notice
2:51
SPEAKER_00: the life God has actually placed in our hands.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: We may wish work was more stable,
2:59
SPEAKER_00: that technology was moving more slowly,
3:03
SPEAKER_00: that culture felt less divided,
3:06
SPEAKER_00: that we were younger, stronger, more certain, or better resourced.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: But this is the moment in which we are alive.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And one of the gifts of spiritual formation is becoming able to see our moment
3:22
SPEAKER_00: without either romanticizing it or resenting it.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: We can ask a more grounded question.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: What has God already formed in me that belongs here?
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have spent years learning how to listen.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you know how to make complicated things understandable.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you know how to sit with people in pain.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can organize, teach,
3:53
SPEAKER_00: repair, write, lead, make beauty, solve problems, or notice what others overlook.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Those are not random pieces of life.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: At certain moments they converge.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: And often we recognize those moments only after looking backward
4:15
SPEAKER_00: and seeing how grace brought resources,
4:18
SPEAKER_00: relationships, experience, and opportunity together.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: The invitation is not to become grandiose about your place in history.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: It is to become available.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Esther still had to choose courage.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: She had to stop thinking about what might happen to her
4:40
SPEAKER_00: and ask what faithfulness required of her position.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: You may be standing in a quieter moment than Esther was.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Most of us are.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: But quiet moments can carry holy participation.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: There may be a person who needs your presence, a project that needs your voice.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: A family that needs your steadiness.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: A community that needs what you have learned.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: A new tool that can be turned toward love instead of fear.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: You do not need to know the whole future to recognize
5:19
SPEAKER_00: that this moment has been entrusted to you.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you are here with what you have become and what you have been given for such
5:29
SPEAKER_00: a time as this.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Take a moment for this prayer of presence.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, help me receive the time in which I am living.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Keep me from wishing my life away while I wait for a different moment.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Show me the experiences, gifts, relationships, and resources you have already formed in me.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Give me courage to recognize what is mine to do,
6:01
SPEAKER_00: in humility to remember that I am participating in your work, not carrying it alone.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Make me available for this moment.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: As you leave this quiet moment, carry this prayer with you.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I am here in this moment.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Show me what is mine to do
6:30
SPEAKER_00: I am here in this moment
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Show me what is mine
6:37
SPEAKER_00: to do
6:40
SPEAKER_00: I am here in this moment
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Show me what is mine to do
6:49
SPEAKER_00: I am here in this moment
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay steady, stay open, stay present.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: You are still here.