Serendipity: For Just Such A Time As This

Serendipitous is an adjective that describes accidentally finding yourself in the right place at the right time, like bumping into a good friend in some unusual location, or finding a hundred-dollar bill on the ground. Once, when hiking in the Columbia Gorge, my wife and I had a serendipitous encounter with a couple from Nebraska, whom we had known 40 years earlier. While you might not have had the “luck” of finding a hundred-dollar bill on the ground, maybe you can think of another serendipitous event.

Last weekend, my wife and I camped at Sunrise campground. I had arranged with a friend to hike to Horse Lake (behind Beaver Mountain and one of the best hikes in Logan Canyon). However, he fell ill and was unable to join me. The problem was that my wife had run into Logan before I knew he wasn’t coming, leaving me stranded at the campsite without a car.

Not one to sit at the campsite, I walked up the road to the scenic Limber Pine Nature trail. As I walked along Hwy 89, I noticed a Home Depot gift card on the ground; then, scattered over about 100 yards, an empty wallet and a few other random cards, including a concealed carry permit. I stuck them in my pocket and decided to look at them when I got back to the campsite.

At my campsite, on a business card, I discovered who the wallet belonged to, along with his cell number. I texted him, and after a few messages, I arranged to drop off his wallet and the items I had found with his family at Bear Lake. My discovery was serendipitous.

Looking back, I could wonder, what if?? What if my friend had not gotten sick and we had gone on the hike? What if I had decided to stay at the campsite and read a book? The answer is that I would not have found this man’s wallet. Serendipity: the phenomenon of making fortunate discoveries by chance or accident. The book of Esther is a testimony of how God works in unexpected, sovereign ways that can appear serendipitous.

Esther tells the story of a young Jewish woman who was seemingly serendipitously taken to be part of King Xerxes’s harem as the king searched for a new queen. Esther, after being orphaned, was raised by her uncle Mordecai; he instructed her not to reveal her Jewish heritage. When her turn came to appear before the king, she found great favor before him, and she was made queen.

When Mordecai overhears an assassination plot against the king and reports it, and King Xerxes honors him, we see God at work. Later, when Mordecai refused to bow down or pay honor to Haman, Xerxes’s official, Haman was enraged. And, “having learned who Mordecai’s people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.” (Esther 3:5–6)

Hamen plots the Jews’ destruction by telling King Xerxes, “There is one ethnic group [whose] laws are different from everyone else’s and they do not obey the king’s laws. It is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. (Esther 3:8–9) The king agrees, and a decree is drawn up authorizing the Jews’ destruction. But, unbeknownst to King Xerxes or Haman, the decree would include Queen Esther.

Mordecai, “serendipitously” learning Haman’s plot, instructs Esther to go to the king and request an audience with him and Haman. This may not seem unusual, but even the queen wasn’t permitted to enter the king’s presence without an invitation; to do so placed her life in peril. The purpose was to reveal how Haman’s plot would also kill her.

Mordecai instructed Esther, “If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) Events that seemed to be serendipitous would reveal God’s sovereign will. The book of Esther testifies to how God delivered his people through Esther.

Something appearing to be serendipitous can be God’s sovereign will at work. A happenstance encounter with someone may be God’s provision for you to speak with them about something important; a seemingly insignificant discovery could change another’s life. Possibly, God is bringing you to “such a time as this” to reveal the love and deliverance He provides for you through His Son.