Today, I’ve finished a work begun in 1993. I’m in awe at the affirmation God has given that this is his time to release a book I’ve tried to write for 20 years.

My new e-book, The Esther Blessing: Grace to Reign in Life went live today.

I had thought it would be wonderful for The Esther Blessing to be released on Purim, the two-day Jewish feast commemorating the events in Esther. This year, Purim occurred February 24-25. But it took me longer than I’d anticipated to get the manuscript ready, and my commitment was not to get so hurried that I didn’t complete the work fully.

Yesterday evening, March 11, I downloaded the manuscript onto Kindle. This morning, I awoke to find The Esther Blessing available! As I sat, praising God, I began to wonder what day it is on the Hebrew calendar. I looked – and found that it’s Nissan 1.

2013 – The timing

In Exodus 12:2, God told Moses and Aaron, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.” Then, the Lord instituted Passover and led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.

A year later on the first day of Nissan, Moses erected the tabernacle that had been built according to God’s specifications. At God’s command, Moses placed all the holy items in the tabernacle – the ark containing the Testimony with the atonement cover on top, the table that held the bread, the lampstand, the golden altar of incense, the bronze altar of burnt offering and the basin. Moses anointed the tabernacle and everything in it. Then Aaron and his sons put on their priestly garments for the first time, and Moses anointed them.

And so Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (Ex. 40:33-35)

This year on the first day of Nissan, I’ve finished a work begun in 1993. I’m in awe at the affirmation God has given, that this is his time to release a book I’ve tried to write for 20 years.

1993 – The beginning

One icy Saturday in January 1993, I drove onto a desolate college campus I had not visited before. Beside me on the car seat lay a flyer announcing the starting and ending times for a Christian drama conference and the building on campus where the meeting would be held. My car clock displayed the conference start time. Alas. I’d hoped to arrive early after my 100-plus mile drive.

The campus was small but empty and unmarked – no building names, no conference signs, no indication whether a cluster of parked cars signaled a nearby dorm, a Saturday class or the gathering I sought; no passers-by on foot or in vehicles to ask.

Driving in circles, growing more and more frustrated, I finally found a lone, bundled walker. He stopped when I rolled down my window, but knew little more of the campus than I did. Just when I’d decided I might have to turn around and drive home, I saw a small poster staked outside a building, signaling the conference spot.

Parking and hurrying inside, I found the same eerie emptiness. A registration table sat, unmanned. I signed the check-in sheet and picked up a conference schedule. A long, empty hallway greeted me, pock-marked at intervals with classroom doors. Inside some of those classrooms, the first-hour seminars were well underway.

A lone chair sat outside the open door to one classroom. Just inside the door, a man stood, speaking to people I could not see. Ah, but his wasn’t the seminar I’d planned to attend. I wandered farther down the hall and found the room I wanted. Alas again. The door was shut. I could not bring myself to barge in on the session so late, especially knowing I had to enter the front of the room. I could hear nothing but a low murmur through the closed door. Tiptoeing back down the hallway, I sat in the lone chair, determined to hear what I could of the class I had not planned to attend.

Of course, I’d come upon a talk about who-knows-what, midstream. As the presenter presented and I struggled to follow, he loosely quoted a phrase from Romans 5:20. “You know,” he said. “Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.”

The man kept talking, but I heard nothing else. For God had shot that portion of a verse like an arrow into my heart.

That icy morning, deeply discouraging and highly distressing situations seemed about to crush me. I saw unrighteousness getting away with murder, so to speak. I’d arrived frustrated, because of misjudging the drive time, compounded by the confusion in finding the building. But also, I’d arrived feeling as bleak as the weather, helpless, hopeless, alone.

The instant the grace arrow hit my heart, I knew God had orchestrated all that had seemed so frustrating up to that moment – the lack of clear directions, the frigid weather, the empty campus, even the chair sitting in an empty hallway beside an open door – to get me to a certain place at a certain time to hear, as if for the first time, a phrase I already knew.

Where sin abounds, nothing can be done to stop it? Where sin abounds, everyone is doomed? Where sin abounds, hope is lost? No, no, no!

Where sin abounds, God has made the way for grace to abound much more. As I sat in that hallway, the truth I’d heard exploded within me. I wanted to shout, “Yes! Yes! How wonderful, Lord! YES!”

Given the circumstances, I didn’t shout. But when the conference ended, I left, still dancing on the inside. As I drove into winter’s early darkness, I asked the Lord questions I would continue to ask long after arriving home: What is grace? What does it mean for grace to abound much more? What does that look like? Does it always happen where sin abounds? If not, why not? How can it happen here?

I knew God had given me a key. He had spoken something deeply, profoundly into my spirit. All the answers I didn’t yet know, he wanted me to seek. He was inviting me to press in to him to discover what the key opened and to unlock and own it all. I had no idea where the pursuit would lead me, or how long it would take.

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The story told under the heading, “1993 – The Beginning,” is excerpted from The Esther Blessing: Grace to Reign in Life, originally published as an e-book in 2013. The e-book was revised and a paperback version released in 2017. The cover photo here is of the revised version.