Week Four: Becoming Esther June Prayer Challenge

Today is day one of week four of the Becoming Esther June Prayer Challenge. If you are joining us, feel free to join the accountability group discussion on Facebook >> HERE <<

Also, you can download your FREE personal prayer guide >> HERE <<

Here is our week four prompt:

Week 4: Risk Taker

On the road to becoming Esther, you must be willing to risk it all for “such a time as this.” What areas of your life is God calling you to take risks/leaps of faith?

Esther 4:12-14 shows us a dramatic climax in the story of Esther. Mordecai challenges Esther to take a huge step of faith. According to the story, no one could enter the King’s inner court without first being summoned. If the King did not hold out his golden scepter to the individual who came in his presence without being summoned, that person could be put to death. According to the accounts in Esther chapter four, we see that Esther had not been summoned for the past 30 days. She would have to go in uninvited with hope/faith that the King would pardon her presence and show her favor by raising his golden scepter toward her.

It is easy to obey God when we are protected and secure. It’s much more difficult to be obedient when:

-We could lose our job

-It could ruin our reputation

-We are risking our life

-We have to come out of our comfort zone

-We have to talk to someone we much rather cut off forever

You only need a little

Leaps of faith stir the heart of God. Matthew 17:20 tells us that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. Jesus was responding to the disciples questions of “Why couldn’t we drive out a demon? --- from a boy who had been possessed and his father was seeking healing for him. Jesus’ answer was clear: Because you have little faith; but his answer was surprising. Your faith doesn’t need to look very big! That means the disciples’ faith was smaller than a mustard seed. I wonder if the disciples had faith at all in that moment, but I can relate. When mountains do not move in our lives it may be because of our little faith; but the truth is, we don’t need much faith to move the mountain, we just need a little: “As small as a mustard seed.”

Faith requires action

In order to move the mountains in your life or to accomplish your God-given assignment, it is going to take faith and faith many times includes action and those actions can be risky! This week, let’s ask the Holy Spirit to bring to our mind the areas where we need to be risk takers. You were born for this very task:

• To write the book
• To be the one who bring the message of salvation to your family
• To go across the world to pray for broken women in a third-world country
• To be the light at a job full of darkness
• To raise up that child in the ways of the Lord
• To take in that family member who has no one
• To face the kings and rulers of this world and share God’s truth with them

Whatever it is that God is calling you to do, it’s going to take some risk. It’s going to take some faith, but my dear, greater is the God that lives in you than he who lives in the world.

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 1 John 4:4

This is our last and final week. What areas of your life is God calling you to take risks/leaps of faith?

Pray your way through it

Then use the prayer on your personal guide to pray over each area.

xoxo, Let's Heal!

Week Three: Becoming Esther June Prayer Challenge

Today is day one of week three of the Becoming Esther June Prayer Challenge. If you are joining us, feel free to join the accountability group discussion on Facebook >> HERE <<

Also, you can download your FREE personal prayer guide >> HERE <<

Here is our week three prompt:

Week 3: Share Our Beauty

Every Esther has a beauty to share. God has given women qualities of beauty that no other creature on earth has: nurturing, vulnerable, compassionate, etc.

What is your beauty?

What are characteristics that make you, YOU? God created you uniquely beautiful and you carry a beauty that only you can share. What is it?

In Esther 2:9-15 we see that Esther went through a beautification process. Six months of oil and six months of perfumes and cosmetics; one whole year of preparation. She ate specific food (she was on a special diet perhaps to detox impurities) and was isolated for this time to help her focus mentally to meet King Xerxes. Her beauty was set apart during this time.

We see that in her preparation, she was favored by the overseer of the women preparing to meet the king — Hegai, and he gave her the best treatment and preparation; Heggai was another person God sent Esther to guide her and offer her good counsel.

The point is, your beauty needs preparation. While Esther was outwardly beautiful, there was still some things she needed to learn and work on. There were still some things she needed to detox from.

What preparation does your beauty need in order to be set apart?

As women, we are given specific qualities that no other creature on earth has, for example:

- the ability to give birth

- the ability to nurse a baby at our breast

- to care deeply about someone

- to nurse a human being back to health with our whole heart

- to be vulnerable and open

Someone hates our beauty

When God said he created “man” in his own image, there were the characteristics of God that he placed in women. That is part of our breathtaking beauty; and someone hates it. He too was beautiful. Lucifer was a beautiful angel, so beautiful he fell in love with himself. He was filled with pride. Once cast out of heaven, God created another beautiful being named Eve -- it’s no wonder he came for her first! Since then, beauty has been attacked by the evil one.

Your beauty is under attack

This might make your wounded-heart more understandable now. Satan longs to discourage you from getting to your purpose, so he attempts to wound your beauty to a point where you refuse to share it! BUT GOD!

This week:

Think about your beauty.

What special traits in your appearance and character make you uniquely you?

How does God want you to use your beauty to influence others?

What makes you a beautiful, unique woman of God?

Are you sharing your beauty with the world?

If not, begin processing why.

Pray your way through it

Then pray the prayer found on your personal prayer guide over each beauty you acknowledge. It’s time for you to share your beauty with the world!

xoxo, Let's Heal!

Week Two: Becoming Esther June Prayer Challenge

Today is day one of week two of the Becoming Esther June Prayer Challenge. If you are joining us, feel free to join the accountability group discussion on Facebook  >> HERE <<

Also, you can download your FREE personal prayer guide >> HERE <<

Here is our week two prompt:

Week 2: Embrace Guidance On the road to becoming Esther, God will strategically place people in your life to provide wisdom, guidance and good counsel. Esther had Mordecai. Who do you have?

The beautiful thing about Esther is this: She didn’t allow her past hurts to stop her from embracing the guidance of Mordecai. Esther 2:7 tells us that Esther’s father’s nephew (which makes him her cousin - WHEW) named Mordecai took her in and adopted her after her parents died.

We see throughout the story that Mordecai was there to give Esther wise counsel from her upbringing to the palace and beyond. Some of the wise counsel he gave her:

Keeping the fact that she was of Jewish descent a secret until an appointed time, advising her to go before King Xerxes on behalf of the Jewish people to save them from genocide “for such a time as this.”

Esther would have never been able to take this counsel if she was bitter from the wounds of her past. She could have easily said:

“You’re not my father.”

Indeed. He was not. But, he was her adoptive father, the person God placed in her life to guide her to the palace.

Where do you stand?

God is going to sent you people who are going to help you reach your destiny to be a queen.

Are you in a place to receive their counsel?

Are you still bitter from your past hurts that you are pushing God-sent people away?

We may just be pushing away the very people God is sending us to groom us and nurture us. Remember, hurt people hurt (and reject) people.

Be thankful for the people in your life

As we begin healing on this journey to becoming Esther, begin to note, refocus and be thankful for the people who are in your life to provide you good counsel, love and support.

Focus on these people this week.

List them out and pray for each one of them every day.

Give thanks to God for their wisdom and counsel in your life.

Acknowledge how their influence on your life has made you a better woman of God.

Have you pushed others away?

Maybe you HAVE pushed people away because you are hurt. You know, that is OK, because this week, you are going to write down the names of those people, pray for them and perhaps seek some kind of reconciliation with them.

It might mean you have to apologize.

It might mean you have to heal first before that happens.

Whatever it is, know that there is redemption waiting for you.

Do you feel alone?

But maybe you do not have anyone. Maybe your hurt is blinding you from seeing who is actually there. God is faithful. He WILL send you a Mordecai.

This week, spend some time in prayer asking God to bring you a Mordecai.

A person who will love, counsel and lift you up.

A person who will nurture you while you prepare to see the King.

You may already have a person in mind that you look up to and would want to be a part of your life as accountability and as a friend.

Put this person down on your sheet and pray for them this week.

Then, perhaps you can ask them out for coffee and begin a friendship with them.

Pray your way through it

Go through the prayer that’s on your personal guide and pray it over each person you have listed.

Let’s finish Esther chapter two and begin reading chapter three this week!

xoxo, Let's Heal!

Becoming Esther | June Prayer Challenge

I am struggling with healing from my past hurts.

I feel alone and purposeless.

When is my husband coming?

Why am I not married yet?

Are you struggling with one of the above statements or questions in your life? For the past year I have heard the heart-cry of women in my community that resonate some of these same hurts, fears and emotions. 

You are not alone. In fact, the Bible shows us many women who have felt the very same way as you do.

One of those women is Esther. While preparing for the "Becoming Esther" panel event that I will be speaking at on Saturday, May 27th, the Lord had placed it on my heart to create a prayer journal writing prompt for the participants. I thought I would share it with all of YOU! Let's do a prayer challenge for the month of June: The Becoming Esther Prayer Challenge!

>>> DOWNLOAD THE PRAYER CHALLENGE SHEET HERE <<<

Some things in my studies that hit me about Esther:

She had a past full of wounds.

She didn't allow her wounds to stop her from accepting guidance and love from others.

She shared her God-given beauty with the world.

She was bold enough to risk it all for her God-given assignment!

We may read the book of Esther with the misconception that her beauty got her into the palace. While the fact that she was beautiful is true, her story shows her strength, teachability, discretion and boldness -- to name a few. These qualities were a part of her personality and character; a heart willing to do what God had called her to do and THAT is what qualified her to be queen. Without such qualities, she would only be a beauty queen unable or unwilling to risk it all to save her people.

You, too, are made up of more than what meets the eye! You are in preparation to meet the king. Allow this prayer challenge to assist in your preparation and transformation into a stunning queen God has called "for such a time as this!"

LET THE CHALLENGE BEGIN!

The "Becoming Esther" panel discussion will take place on Saturday, May 27th, I have found so much healing in her story. You can find details to the event >> HERE << along with a link to purchase tickets.