T.G.I.F.: Part 1

If you've been following my blog for a while, you may remember that on Friday mornings I go to a women's Bible study. The past 10 weeks we have been doing a Beth Moore study on Esther and it has been excellent. I don't think I've ever been disappointed in a B.M. study. I am kicking myself for not blogging every Friday on the things God was teaching me through this study.

This past Friday was the last day of this study and it was kind of sad. How ever weird this may sound, you start building a connection or a relationship with Beth who teaches on the screen every week and with the people in the book of Esther that come to life through the written word. I would like to go back and pull out some of the main things that really struck me through out the study. (I'm doing this mainly for myself so down the road, I can come back and remember.)

I have to admit the first couple of weeks of this study I was not that impressed. I thought it didn't come close to being as good as "Breaking Free", which in my opinion has been her best study that I've been through. I felt like it didn't really apply to me. The first week was on setting a foundation and learning the background and the beginning of the book of Esther. Here are the things that jumped out at me.

Week 1:

• "Esther" is the only book in the Bible that has no mention of God. His name may not be in it, but it is on it.
• "Esther" is not about the miracle, but God working in the natural.
• "Esther" extends a vital perspective on the providence of God. - Merriam Webster's definition of providence: "God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny." Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary adds, "In so doing [in His providence] God attends not only to apparently momentous events and people but also to those that seem both mundane and trivial. ... Indeed, so all encompassing is God's attention to events within creation that nothing...happens by chance."
• It's tough being a woman in another woman's shadow.

Week 2:

• The Jews in Susa, in "Esther", could have gone home, to Jerusalem, but chose to stay, so they were "secularized".
• There are 4 different kinds of women - 1) She wants everybody to think she's beautiful. (She is miserable.) 2) She wants all men to think she's beautiful. (She is dangerous.) 3) She doesn't want anyone to think she's beautiful. (She's terrified.) 4) She hopes a few somebodies think she's beautiful.
• It's tough being a woman in a world where beauty is a treatment.
• "Many of the Jews had all but forgotten God in their daily disciplines, but He had not forgotten them....We are much like them. We too can become so steeped in our culture that we are almost indistinguishable from the world....The fact that we can hide our Christianity assumes a certain amount of assimilation."

Wow! Did you get that last bullet point? Did you ask yourself, as a Christian, if you are indistinguishable from the world? Convicting.

Week 3: This is where I was really starting to be spoken to.

• It's tough being a woman in a mean world.
• Meanness always has a history.
• Meanness perceives a threat. - When we are "mean" we need to identify the threat. We tend to compare ourselves to those we feel is a threat. Ask yourself, "Who is a rival? Why? Where's the history and threat?
• Insecurity is at the heart of every rivalry.
• "Life sometimes isn't pretty. We aren't plastic ponies, and this isn't pretend. No matter how we sparkle at church or Bible study, on earth we still have pain. Instead of going ahead and feeling the pain, processing it before God, and letting Him heal us, sometimes we opt for a trade-in. We swap pain for anger because it's easier for a while, and, boy, can it be energizing! Soon mad turns to mean."
• To live some semblance of victory, I have to learn to be intentional and determined about where I would "set" my mind. We can't just depend on a good mood to get us through.
• "Because Satan has a limited leash where believers are concerned, his most powerful tactics are psychological. Though he can't possess our minds, he profoundly and destructively influences our thought."
• "I don't know exactly how God perfects plans that seem so bleak to us in process, but these two things I know: He never takes His eyes off of us or off the clock ticking over us....God loves you so. He is hard at work in your life, and the same eye that's on the sparrow is on the wristwatch."
• "Sometimes God uses the winds of a new threat to blow the dust off a past miracle that has moved from our active file into the archives." Remember what God has done for you! Remember who you are!

You might want to read some of those quotes again and let them sink in.

I think I'm going to break up my "Esther" sharing. Otherwise, this will be way too long!