Come As You Are

Now when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai who had taken her as his daughter, came to go in to the king, she did not request anything except what Hegai, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the women, advised. And Esther found favor in the eyes of all who saw her…The king loved Esther more than all the women, and she found favor and kindness with him more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. –Esther 2:15,17.

When deciding what Old Testament book to read through next, the book of Esther immediately jumped off the page at me. I saw the movie version of Esther, One Night with the King, before I read the book when I was in middle school. After watching the movie and then reading the book, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the story.

 

 

If you’re not familiar with the story of Esther, you can read the first two chapters here. From verses 8-14, we see that the women had to have a year of “beautification” – six months with oil and myrrh and six months with spices and the cosmetics (that sounds crazy to me!). After that – before a woman could go before the king for him to see whether or not he liked her – she was allowed to pick whatever extra jewels / trinkets /etc. she wanted from the harem to bring with her to see the king. In the movie (it’s not mentioned in Scripture, but it’s a funny scene), a woman goes to see the King and she chose pretty much all the gold jewelry in the harem, so when she goes to see the king, she looks ridiculous. She has trouble standing, because of how heavy the gold is…it’s pretty funny.

But Esther chose what no other woman did, which was to not wear anything from the harem except what the king’s eunuch, Hegai, recommended. Because of this (and also because of her personality, I’m sure), the king “loved Esther more than all the women”. So where am I going with this, you may ask?

This might be a stretch for me to apply the text in this way, but I think it works. I think Esther is a great example of how we should come into God’s presence. I think sometimes we try to “prepare ourselves” before we come to God. Obviously we should come with the right attitude; we should come with reverence and fear of our Heavenly Father. But I think God also wants us to come as we are, no matter what that entails. Whether we are joyful because of a blessing or we are in pain because of suffering, we should come to God with no masks or facades. God loves us, and He knows our hearts way, way better than anyone on earth, so why would we try and pretend to appear as someone we’re not?

David is also a great example of how to come into God’s presence. We see David come to God in exceeding joy and appreciation of God’s goodness (Ps. 111), but we also see David almost go insane with sadness and anger (Ps. 137:9, Ps. 86:1). When we come to God as a broken being, with questions that need answering and prayers to be heard, I believe God is glorified. Coming to God as we are, as Esther did, with no facades, is a beautiful thing. Coming as we are is a cry out to God, whether it’s a cry of praise or a cry for help.

So I encourage you to spend some quiet time with God today, and just bear your burdens on Him and praise Him for the blessings He has given. Our Heavenly Daddy wants nothing more than for us to come before Him and sit on His lap, coming as we are.