Tag Archives: Esther

At the Table

March 13, 2026 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Luke 2:12 (NIV)

In a couple of weeks I will celebrate my 20th anniversary of this chapter-a-day blogging and podcasting journey. I’ve been mulling that over a lot over the past year. The truth is that this was in many ways an overflow of a daily practice I carved out for many years before that. Each morning I crawl out of bed, I grab a cup of coffee and I show up at the table. There, I spend some time with God, meditating, praying, and thinking about where I find myself on life’s road.

Along this journey, I’ve observed that many people hope for a connection with God at their weekly church service. The hope is that being in a building they believe is God’s House, somewhere amidst the music, the spectacle, the communal worship, and the spoken word they will experience something special.

As a follower of Jesus I am called to gather with fellow believers regularly, and God does inhabit and work in-and-through the praise and worship of His people. I have observed, however, that this lends itself to wanting or expecting something amazing, emotional, and spectacular. Sometimes churches even try to create those moments intentionally — crafting services designed to stir powerful emotions.

My own experience is that this misses the point.

It wasn’t a conscious choice on my part to move from the story of Esther to Luke’s version of Jesus’ story. Yet, in the first two chapters I’m finding connections I’ve never seen before. In yesterday’s chapter, it was the fact that God raises simple, faithful, unassuming people into key players within the Great Story. In today’s chapter, it’s reversals. The story of Esther is known for all of its reversals of fortune. Wouldn’t you know it, today’s chapter is full of them, as well.

The best and the brightest of religious minds and thinkers expected God’s Messiah to arrive in pomp. The Messiah, it was believed, would establish an earthly throne, wipe out the Roman Empires and subdue the nations, reign in earthly glory in Jerusalem where the entire earth would come to worship him.

But through the prophet Isaiah God had already said:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.”

Building on yesterday’s chapter, we find that the Messiah enters human history quietly through unassuming people of simple faith. In today’s chapter, Luke methodically present this reversal:

What People Expected	What God Actually Did
The Messiah would arrive in royal splendor	A baby is born quietly to a young couple of simple faith
The King would be announced to rulers and priests	Angels announce Him to shepherds in a field
The Messiah would enter the world through power	He enters through vulnerability, lying in a manger
The religious elite would recognize Him first	Two elderly saints quietly recognize Him in the Temple
God’s presence would remain centered in the Temple	Jesus begins forming relationships around everyday tables
The kingdom would overthrow Rome by force	The kingdom begins by transforming hearts

Jesus did show up at the Temple. In fact, He does so twice in today’s chapter. Once as a baby and then as a twelve-year-old. But God’s Son is already establishing that His ways are not the ways of religious institutions. His focus will never be the Temple, because He knows that the Temple will be rubble in 40 years. He even tells His disciples this. His focus is on the table…

The table he learns to craft with his earthly father’s training
The table he shares daily with family and community for thirty years
The table where he eats with His disciples
The table where he dines with tax collectors and sinners
The table where he has a midnight conversation with Nicodemus
The table where Pharisees host Him as a guest
The table where Lazarus throws a dinner party in His honor
The table where He celebrates one final Passover and blesses bread and wine

In the quiet this morning, Luke reminds me that a major paradigm shift has already begun. Jesus would go to the Temple for festivals, but His focus was never on the spectacle and bustle of the Temple. His focus was daily spent quietly at the table with others.

It’s no accident that Luke’s version of Jesus’ story begins with a baby laid in a feeding trough and ends with bread broken at a table. From the beginning, God was inviting us not to a spectacle, but to a meal.

My relationship with Jesus began in a church. Worship with my local gathering of Jesus’ followers is an essential part of the spiritual rhythm of my life. But it’s not the most transformative part. The most transformative part of my relationship with Jesus is here in the quiet of my office, every morning, at the table.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Promotional graphic for Tom Vander Well's Wayfarer blog and podcast, featuring icons of various podcast platforms with a photo of Tom Vander Well. — These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Book Summary List

Esther (Feb-Mar 2026)

February 26, 2026 Tom Vander Well 3 Comments

Each photo below corresponds to the chapter-a-day post for the books of Esther published by Tom Vander Well in February and March of 2026. Click on the photo linked to each chapter to read the post.

Book Summary List, Chapter-a-Day

esther (Jul/Aug 2019)

September 3, 2019 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Below are chapter-a-day posts from the book of Esther published in July and August 2019. Click on an image to view the respective post for each chapter.

Esther Chapter 1: Strong Women in Weak Circumstances

Esther Chapter 2: Bad Blood Boiling Over

Esther Chapter 7: Victim of My Own Poison

Esther Chapter 9: “If you only knew what it was like….”

Esther Chapter 10: A Small Cog in the Works

Please feel free to share this post! – Tom

Book Summary List, Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Posts by Book

September 2, 2019 Tom Vander Well 22 Comments

Click on the graphic to access a summary of posts for the book. I will slowly be going back and adding book summaries. Please bookmark and keep checking back!

Chapter-a-Day

Unlikely Hero

August 2, 2019 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
Esther 4:14b

In a couple of weeks, I’m scheduled to give a message among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers entitled “It’s a Secret.” In preparation for that message, I have been pouring over some of Frank Warren’s PostSecret books. For those who are unfamiliar, Warren is simply a small business person who decided to do an art project. He handed out about 3000 black postcards with his address printed on them and asked people to share their “secret” with him. Years later they keep arriving from all over the world and his blog at postsecret.com is among the most popular in the world.

As I read today’s chapter, in which Queen Esther is made aware of Haman’s plot to annihilate her people, I thought about her secret. Esther had successfully managed to become the queen of Persia by being keeping her heritage and ethnicity a secret. She had assimilated into Persian culture. She did not demand a kosher diet, which would have given her away. She did not bring up any moral objections during her year-long education in providing the king sexual pleasure. The evidence would suggest that Esther was not a “godly woman” (by the strict definition of religiously following the tenents and disciplines of Judaism) and the faith of her people does not appear to have been something she practiced or felt compelled to take seriously.

I was also reminded, once again, that God is never mentioned in the book of Esther. It’s also interesting that when Esther asked Mordecai and her people to fast for three days it does not mention prayer in conjunction with the fasting. While prayer and fasting traditionally went together, the prayer part of it is not mentioned by the Queen.

Along the journey, I’ve observed that the institutions and adherents of my own faith like to try and keep God in their own binary boxes. I confess that I have, at times, fallen prey to this notion myself. People are either “sinners” or “saints.” God’s pleasure and purpose are reserved for the latter but definitely not the former. And yet, there are so many examples of God using people who wouldn’t pass our moral or religious litmus tests in order to accomplish His purposes. I’ve come to embrace the fact that when Paul wrote of God who is “able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine” it includes working through and accomplishing His purposes through the most unlikely, seemingly unworthy, of individuals.

Esther is an unlikely hero who reveals herself to be, like all of us, very human. I compare her to Daniel who zealously and religiously clung to his faith, religious discipline, and heritage, and he still succeeded to carve out position and purpose throughout a lifetime in captivity. Esther, on the other hand, follows the easier path of cultural compromise. She keeps her heritage, her people, and what faith she might have had in her people’s religion a secret. She likely kept her secret in order to avoid prejudice and persecution. Some would call that cowardice. Her response to Mordecai upon learning of Haman’s genocidal plot reveals her feelings of powerlessness and fear. All of this, and still she finds herself in just the right place at just the right time to accomplish God’s purpose of saving her people.

Ever since I became a follower of Jesus, I’ve sought God’s purpose in my life journey. I’ve tried to be a person of zealous, disciplined conviction like Daniel, but any who care to look closely at my track record will find that it is dotted with the same kinds of compromises, secrets, easy choices, and fear revealed in Esther. My solace is that God did accomplish His purposes in both of them, and I believe that somehow in the mysterious tension between God’s sovereignty and my free will I continually find myself at just the right place, at just the right time, to accomplish the purposes God has for me at this very moment.

And so, I begin another day in the journey. Press on, my friend.

Chapter-a-Day

Finding Favor

January 14, 2013 Tom Vander Well 3 Comments

English: God Appears to Noah, c. 1896-1902, by... — English: God Appears to Noah, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French, 1836-1902), gouache on board, 8 15/16 x 4 3/8 in. (22.7 x 11.1 cm), at the Jewish Museum, New York (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chapter-a-Day Genesis 6

But Noah found favor with the Lord. Genesis 6:8 (NLT)

Favor [fey-ver] noun.

something done or granted out of goodwill, rather than from justice or for remuneration; a kind act:to ask a favor.
friendly or well-disposed regard; goodwill: to win the favor of the king.
the state of being approved or held in regard: to be in favor at court; styles that are now in favor.

Favor is such a murky thing. There’s no reason given why Noah found favor with God. It never says that Noah was better than anyone else. It doesn’t say he had been faithful or particularly good or honest or deserving. Yet Noah received God’s favor. You see it in other stories across God’s message. Joseph finds favor with God, and Potiphar and Pharaoh. Daniel finds favor with God, and Nebuchadnezzar. Esther found favor with Xerxes and his eunuch. Peter, James, and John found favor with Jesus despite being total boneheads.

I don’t pretend to understand it, I don’t think there’s a formula for it, and I hope that my heart is never misled. Nevertheless, I know that finding favor with God and others can be an important ingredient in accomplishing God’s purposes. When I pray for my children, I pray that they might find favor with God, with their teachers, and with their employers. I regularly pray for God’s favor and the favor of others. Then, I do my best to live and love so as to be worthy of it and prove grateful for it.

Chapter-a-Day

Don’t Worry, It’s on the List

November 13, 2012 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 56

You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
Psalm 56:8 (NLT)

Lists. My life is full of lists. Wendy is the Queen of the Lists. Her royal highness manages the Vander Well realm via a series of lists. There is the white board calendar list which used to list our daughters schedules, but now lists our evening meals for the week. There is the kitchen grocery list that is updated any time you use the last of something in the kitchen. There is the Playhouse list of what needs to go to the lake. The other day I was asked to print the rehearsal list for the theatre. I have a work list, a honey-do list, and a list of people to call. I have a list of chapters we’ve covered on this chapter-a-day journey. There’s a list of DVDs we own, a “must see” movie list, and a list of movies in our queue. My computer holds mailing lists, show lists, and cast lists.

This post is beginning to feel like Dr. Seuss.

Big list. Little list. List, list, list.
How many lists must I insist
on managing all that life persists
to throw my way as I exist?

In the days when David wrote the lyric of today’s psalm, kings and rulers in authority were known to be keepers of lists and records. Because the written word was rare and reserved almost exclusively for rulers, it was a big deal for Kings to have anything that was written down read to them. Sometimes, if the king had a bout of insomnia for example, he would ask his servants to read from the records, chronicles and lists. In doing so, he would sometimes run across an item on the list on which he would act. There are at least two very clear references of God using circumstances like this to fulfill His purposes in the old stories:

In the story of Esther: “That night the king could not sleep; so he ordered the book of the chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him.” (the chapter-a-day entries for this chapter from 2009 and from 2012)

In the story of Josiah: “Then Shaphan the secretary informed [King Josiah], ‘Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.’ And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.” (the chapter-a-day entry for this chapter)

When David’s lyrics refer to his tears being stored up and his troubles recorded, the image he is creating is that of his lament being written on God’s royal record. It is chronicled and will not be forgotten by God who sits on the throne. God sees. God knows. It will not be forgotten. It’s written on the list.

We all go through periods of life when we feel alone. Our troubles seem so huge. Our prayers seem to hit the ceiling and bounce back. We wonder if God is listening. We question whether God even cares.

Today, I’m reminded that God says the number of my days is already accounted for in His records. My name is recorded in His book. Even the decreasing number of hairs on my head is on a list somewhere in heaven’s royal archive. Certainly, I am not abandoned despite the intensity of my feelings to the contrary. My troubles are not forgotten. My cares are known.