Counting the Cost
30 Days in Ruth and Esther - day 25
It is in this passage of Esther that we find the most well-known lines from the book:
“Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
“And so I will go to the king, which is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”
Not many of us will face a moment like Esther’s, where a single decision could cost us our lives. But we will all face moments where our courage is tested, where we are asked to make difficult choices, and where doing what is right will require us to risk something real.
Mordecai sensed immediately what Esther would be tempted to do. He knew she would feel the pull to hesitate, to delay, to reason her way out of action. It was against the law to go in to the king uninvited. She would be stepping into a situation she could not control. After all, remember what happened to Vashti?
This wasn’t a personal attack on Esther’s character. It was an honest recognition of human nature. Anyone in her position would feel the weight of this moment. Anyone would struggle here. Esther would be no different.
So Mordecai presses her. He removes every illusion of safety. You will not escape. If you remain silent, relief and deliverance will come from another place—but you and your father’s house will perish.
There is faith in those words. God is not named, but He is not absent. Mordecai is not guessing. He is not speaking in wishful thinking. He is convinced that deliverance will come. The question is not if God will act, but whether Esther will be part of it.
That is what makes this moment so heavy. Esther is not being asked to save her people. She is being given the opportunity to join in what God is going to do—and that opportunity comes with real risk.
She understands that.
“I will go to the king, which is against the law…”
She is not minimizing the danger. She is naming it.
“And if I perish, I perish.”
That is not recklessness. That is settled resolve. She has counted the cost and chosen her course.
During our lifetime, we are given moments like this—though rarely as dramatic. Moments where we know what is right, and we also know there is a cost attached to it. The courage to act, the courage to speak, the willingness to risk something—this is part of what it means to walk faithfully.
Sometimes it is not our courage that is being tested, but someone else’s. We find ourselves depending on others to do the right thing, to speak up, to act. They are in the position to do something, and we are not. All we can do is ask, exhort, and urge—but they must be the ones to act.
Here is what we must not overlook: whether we act with courage, or someone else does, it will not change the ultimate outcome God intends. Deliverance and relief will come from another place.
Our hope does not rest in our courage, or in the courage of others. Our hope rests in Christ alone.
And this is the true source of courage—the knowledge that everything does not depend on us, but on the God who works through us and in us to accomplish His will.
