On Sunday, Victor asked something that lingered with me long after the service ended: Does the favour of God extend to people who are not yet fully aware of Him, or even walking closely with Him? It is a simple question, but it unsettles a lot of our tidy assumptions.
As I sat with it this week, my thoughts kept returning to Esther. Her story quietly dismantles our Sunday school idea of how God is supposed to work. We like our heroes clean, decisive, morally impressive. Esther is none of those things at the start.
She is a young Jewish girl, orphaned, adopted by her cousin, and then swept into a state-mandated search for a new queen. This is not romance. It is empire, power, sensuality, and politics. She does not volunteer. She does not opt in with ambition. In a system like that, you survive by complying.
And yet the text tells us,
“the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she obtained grace and favour in his sight.”
That line should stop us in our tracks. In the middle of something coercive, unjust, and morally complicated, favour appears. The Hebrew word chen speaks of grace, acceptance, undeserved goodwill. There is no hint that Esther earned it, planned it, or morally outshone the others. It simply rests on her.
This is how the book of Esther works. God is never named, but His presence is everywhere. Like a fingerprint on glass, unseen unless the light hits it just right. This is divine activity without religious packaging.
The lesson is both uncomfortable and deeply comforting. God’s favour does not wait for our lives to become neat. It meets us in places we did not choose and situations we would rather escape. Yet God’s favour always works toward transformation; it never leaves us unchanged.
Three truths stand out:
First, compromise is not automatic disqualification. Many of us live in morally messy seasons—a job that conflicts with our values, a relationship that began poorly, a decision made from fear rather than faith. It can feel like we are too tainted for God to work there. Esther tells a different story. God does not endorse the broken system she is in, but He is not absent from it either. His favour rests on her right in the middle of it, because His purposes are larger than the mess.
Second, favour often looks ordinary. For Esther, it was practical grace: the goodwill of a custodian, timely advice, the king’s affection that became a platform for deliverance. In our lives, favour may appear as a supportive person, a moment of calm, or a door opening just enough to keep going. Do not dismiss these small mercies—they are often God’s fingerprints.
Third, you are not defined by the morality of your past. Esther is introduced in a harem, yet the scripture never labels her as compromised. She is remembered as the one who found favour. God sees the person, not just the context. He sees the heart, the future, the calling, even when the surroundings are flawed. Your identity is not “the one stuck in an unfair job” or “the one in a strained relationship.” You are His. His favour can rest on you even there while guiding you toward growth and transformation.
Pray this, if the message resonates with you: God, I bring before you the places in my life that feel compromised, unfair, and far from ideal. I confess how quickly I assume you only work in clean stories. Thank you for Esther. Thank you that your favour, your unearned and practical grace, can meet me right where I am. Open my eyes to see your fingerprints in the small mercies. Give me trust to believe that this chapter is not the end of the story. Help me to be changed by your favour as I walk forward. I place my messy place into your hands. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Author
kay.alli@legalview.co.uk