There is a phrase that haunts Scripture like a whisper threading through centuries: "for such a time as this." It appears once, in the book of Esther, but its echo sounds everywhere—in Abraham leaving Ur without a map, in Joseph rotting in prison without explanation, in Mary saying yes to an angel without understanding the cost. These are the appointed times: moments when God's choreography intersects with human uncertainty, and faith means stepping forward before the pattern becomes visible.
This study explores what it means to live inside an appointed time before you can see it. Not the triumphant afterward, when the story makes sense, but the uncertain during—when the right time feels like the worst time, and faithfulness looks less like confidence and more like showing up anyway.
Each of these figures stood at a threshold—a moment when faithful action was possible but certainty was not. Click each card to explore what they faced, the step they took, and what remained unseen.
A Jewish queen who risked death to approach an unpredictable king, armed only with "perhaps" and "if I have perished, I have perished."
Haman's decree had sealed the fate of every Jew in Persia. Esther had hidden her identity in the palace, safe but silent. Now Mordecai pressed her: perhaps she had been positioned "for such a time as this." But royal favor was not guaranteed. Approaching the king uninvited meant risking execution. She had no promise it would work—only the weight of a moment that seemed to require her.
"If I have perished, I have perished." These are not the words of certainty but of surrender. Esther fasted for three days, then put on her royal robes and walked toward the throne room. She acted on possible, not promised. Faith here looked like showing up without knowing the outcome, trusting that her positioning might have purpose even if that purpose cost everything.
Esther could not see the king extending his scepter. She could not see Haman's plot unraveling at her banquets, his own gallows becoming his execution site. She could not see the feast of Purim that would commemorate her courage for millennia. She stepped into a story whose ending was hidden—and her step became part of writing it.
A Moabite widow who chose loyalty over security, following her mother-in-law into poverty and a foreign land where she knew nothing of what waited.
Naomi was returning to Bethlehem with nothing—no husband, no sons, no prospects. She urged Ruth to go back to Moab, to find another husband among her own people. The practical choice was clear: security lay behind her. Ahead was a foreign land where she would be an outsider, a widow, reduced to gleaning leftover grain to survive.
"Your people shall be my people, and your God my God." Ruth's commitment was total and unexplained by circumstance. She chose covenant over convenience, presence over provision. Then came the unglamorous faithfulness: rising early, working the fields, gathering what others dropped. Her appointed time looked like ordinary labor in an uncertain situation.
Ruth could not see that the field she "came to meet by circumstance" belonged to Boaz, a kinsman-redeemer. She could not see marriage, restoration, or the son who would become grandfather to King David. She certainly could not see that her name would appear in the genealogy of the Messiah. She was simply faithful in the ordinary—and the ordinary was orchestrated.
A dreamer imprisoned on false charges, forgotten by the one who promised to remember him, serving faithfully in a place that made no sense.
Joseph had done everything right and ended up in prison. His integrity with Potiphar's wife earned him a cell, not a commendation. He interpreted the cupbearer's dream accurately, asked only to be remembered—and was forgotten for two full years. His childhood dreams of sheaves bowing must have seemed like cruel mockery in that dungeon.
Joseph kept serving. In Potiphar's house, he served well. In prison, he served well. There is no record of bitterness, no indication he stopped functioning while waiting for vindication. His appointed time required unglamorous faithfulness in unjust circumstances—stewarding whatever was placed in his hands, even when those hands were in chains.
Joseph could not see Pharaoh's troubling dreams approaching, or that the cupbearer's memory would suddenly return at the exact necessary moment. He could not see the throne, the famine, or his brothers bowing before him. He certainly could not see how his suffering would position him to save the very family that had sold him. The choreography was invisible until suddenly it wasn't.
A man called to leave everything familiar for a destination described only as "a land I will show you"—future tense, no map provided.
"Go out from your land and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you." The call was specific about what Abraham must leave and vague about where he was going. He was seventy-five years old, established in Haran, and God was asking him to become a wanderer toward an unnamed destination.
"And Abram went out, even as Jehovah had spoken to him." Hebrews tells us he "went out not understanding where he goes." This is the essence of faith in appointed times: movement without complete information. Abraham packed his household and departed, trusting that the One who called him would reveal the destination in the walking. The map would unfold step by step.
Abraham could not see Canaan, or the covenant ceremony with smoking torch and oven passing between pieces. He could not see Isaac born to a ninety-year-old mother, or nations descending from his line, or the Messiah tracing His lineage through Abraham's tent. He walked toward a promise that would take generations to unfold—and his walking was counted as righteousness.
A young woman whose "let it be" opened her to blessing and sword alike—saying yes to a plan she could not possibly comprehend.
An angel appeared to a young woman in Nazareth and upended everything. She was betrothed to Joseph, her life trajectory set. Now Gabriel announced she would bear a son conceived by the Holy Spirit—the Son of God. The scandal alone could destroy her. Joseph could divorce her. She could be stoned. And what did it even mean to mother the Messiah?
"Behold, the slave woman of the Lord! May it be to me according to your word." Mary's response is staggering in its simplicity. She asked one clarifying question—"How will this be?"—and then surrendered. Not "let me think about it," not "what about Joseph," not "can you explain more." Just: may it be. Her appointed time required consent before comprehension, trust before understanding.
Mary could not see Joseph's angel-visit that would save their betrothal, or the manger in Bethlehem, or the shepherds and magi. She could not see the sword Simeon would prophesy—the one that would pierce her soul at Golgotha. She could not see the empty tomb or Pentecost or billions calling her blessed. Her "yes" opened a door into a story far larger than she could imagine, with costs she didn't know to count.
An anointed king hiding in caves, hunted by the current king, releasing his timeline into God's hands while the promise seemed impossibly distant.
Samuel had anointed David king, but Saul still sat on the throne—and wanted David dead. The shepherd-warrior who killed Goliath was now a fugitive, hiding in the cave of Adullam with four hundred distressed, indebted, bitter-souled men. The gap between anointing and throne seemed unbridgeable. His appointed time looked like abandonment.
"My times are in Your hand." Psalm 31 breathes the cave's darkness. David poured out his fear, his sense of being forgotten, his desperation—and then surrendered his timeline. He refused to kill Saul when opportunity came, twice. His step was releasing the "when" to God while continuing to show up, lead his ragged band, and trust that the anointing would eventually find its throne.
David could not see Saul's death in battle or his own coronation at Hebron. He could not see Jerusalem becoming his city, or the Psalms becoming the worship book for billions, or the Messiah being called "Son of David." The cave felt like exile, but it was preparation. The wilderness forged the king that comfort never could have.
This week's programming explores "for such a time" from four angles. Each piece illuminates a different facet of living inside appointed times—the waiting, the darkness, the space between, and the surrender. Together they form a complete picture of faith when you cannot see.
Exploring the biblical claim that there are appointed times—and wrestling with what that means when we're inside one.
Ecclesiastes 3 announces that there is an appointed time for everything—a season for every activity under heaven. But this isn't fatalism. Solomon isn't saying "whatever happens was meant to happen." He's observing that life has rhythms, that experiences come in their proper seasons, that there's a divine ordering beneath the apparent chaos.
Acts 17:26 reveals that God "made every nation of men of one blood, to live on all the face of the earth, having determined fore-appointed seasons and boundaries of their dwelling." You are not randomly located in history. Your era, your place, your circumstances—these are not cosmic accidents. Like Esther in the palace, you have been positioned. The question isn't whether your time is appointed, but whether you'll recognize it.
From inside an appointed time, divine choreography looks like coincidence—or worse, chaos. Esther's elevation to queen seemed like random fortune until genocide threatened. Joseph's imprisonment seemed like injustice until famine came. The choreography becomes visible only in retrospect. Faith means trusting the Choreographer while the dance still looks like stumbling.
The six biblical figures explored in this tool each lived the tension between "there is an appointed time" and "I cannot see it from here." The devotional grounds us in Scripture's claim that divine timing is real—then this study shows us what faithfulness looks like for those living inside it before the pattern emerges.
Appointed times often arrive wrapped in darkness. Depression doesn't disqualify you from God's purposes—sometimes it's the very context in which they unfold.
Joseph's appointed time included a pit, slavery, false accusation, and a dungeon. David's included caves, betrayal, and years of running. The phrase "for such a time as this" was spoken to Esther facing potential execution. Scripture doesn't sanitize appointed times. They often feel like abandonment, not destiny.
Elijah wanted to die. David wrote psalms of desperation. Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth. These were not people operating outside their calling—they were prophets and kings in the middle of it. Depression and despair don't remove you from your appointed time. Sometimes they are the texture of it.
What did Joseph do in prison? He served. What did David do in the cave? He led his men and wrote songs. What did Esther do facing death? She fasted and then acted. Faithfulness in dark appointed times isn't feeling better—it's showing up anyway. It's stewarding what's in front of you when you can't see the point.
The figures explored here weren't heroes marching confidently toward visible victory—they were people struggling in darkness, unsure if their faithfulness mattered. The Sunday study on depression names what Scripture already shows: your dark season might be exactly where God's purposes are unfolding.
The appointed time isn't just the moment of action—it's the waiting before it. The space between is where formation happens.
Between Esther hearing Mordecai's challenge and approaching the throne: three days of fasting. Between Mary's "yes" to Gabriel and Jesus' birth: nine months of questions. Between David's anointing and his coronation: years of running. The space between isn't dead time—it's appointed time in its most hidden form.
We want to rush through liminal spaces to the resolution. But Scripture suggests the waiting is doing something. Joseph wasn't just killing time in prison—he was being prepared. Abraham's years of childlessness weren't delay—they were deepening. The space between letting go and moving on is sacred ground where God does invisible work.
Character. Dependence. The death of self-sufficiency. The liminal space strips away what we thought we needed and teaches us what we actually need. David entered the wilderness as a shepherd; he emerged as a king who knew God sustains. The space between is transformation space—if we let it be.
Every figure in this study lived in the space between. Between call and fulfillment. Between anointing and throne. Between "yes" and understanding. The Friday seminar invites us to honor these spaces rather than resent them—to recognize that the appointed time includes the waiting, not just the culmination.
The heart-cry of someone releasing their schedule, their expectations, their "when" to the One who holds all times.
Psalm 31 breathes desperation. David speaks of enemies, plots, being forgotten like the dead, terror on every side. This isn't worship from comfort—it's worship from crisis. The declaration "my times are in Your hand" comes not from someone whose timing worked out, but from someone whose timing felt utterly wrong.
"My times"—not just this moment, but all of them. The seasons of weeping and the seasons of dancing. The appointed times that feel like blessing and the ones that feel like curse. David surrenders the entire timeline, not just the current crisis. All of it belongs to God's hand—including the parts that make no sense.
Declaring "my times are in Your hand" isn't passive resignation—it's active release. It's the choice to stop white-knuckling the schedule, stop demanding that God explain the timing, stop trying to force the next chapter to begin. Surrender is a verb. It's something David did, repeatedly, as an act of faith in the cave.
Psalm 31:15 is the anthem of this study. Every appointed time requires this surrender—the release of our timeline into hands we trust even when we can't see. The Scripture song invites us to sing David's surrender as our own, making his words a prayer for our own unseen seasons.
What do these six lives reveal about how God works in seasons of uncertainty? These patterns emerge not as formulas but as observations—threads that weave through Scripture's appointed times.
Not one of these figures felt confident before stepping. Esther said "if I have perished, I have perished"—that's not certainty, it's surrender. Abraham went "not understanding where he goes." Mary asked "how will this be?" Faith in appointed times isn't waiting until you feel ready; it's stepping while still uncertain. The feeling often follows the action, not the other way around.
Joseph's prison was preparation for palace. David's cave was preparation for throne. The dark seasons weren't interruptions to God's plan—they were essential components of it. What felt like abandonment was actually formation. The darkness doesn't mean you've missed your appointed time; it might mean you're being readied for it.
The phrase "for such a time as this" was spoken when genocide was decreed. Ruth's appointed time came through widowhood and poverty. Joseph's came through injustice and imprisonment. Our appointed times rarely announce themselves with trumpets; they often arrive disguised as disaster. The worst time might be the right time.
God didn't override Esther's agency—He invited her into the plan. Ruth chose to follow Naomi; no one forced her. Abraham chose to leave Ur. Mary said "may it be." The choreography is divine, but it incorporates human decisions. God's sovereignty doesn't eliminate our choosing; it weaves our choices into something larger than we could design.
We don't control when our appointed time comes, but we control whether we step into it. Joseph couldn't choose when Pharaoh would dream or when the cupbearer would remember. But he could choose to interpret honestly, to serve faithfully, to be ready when the summons came. We hold our times loosely; we hold our faithfulness firmly.
David wrote psalms of desperation from the cave—and the cave was still preparation, not disqualification. Esther's appointed time included terror. Ruth's included grief. If your appointed time includes depression, you're in good company. These emotions don't mean you've missed God's timing; they mean you're human, living through hard seasons that are still part of the story.
The thirteen years between Joseph's dream and his rise. The decades between Abraham's call and Isaac's birth. The years between David's anointing and coronation. These gaps aren't divine inefficiency—they're where depth forms. The space between letting go and moving on is sacred time. What feels like waiting is often becoming.
These questions aren't meant to produce quick answers but to open conversation—with yourself, with others, with God. Take them slowly. Let them breathe.
Appointed times don't arrive with labels. Esther didn't know she was in one until Mordecai named it. Ruth probably never knew hers until much later, if at all. What might be happening in your life right now that could be more than it appears?
Consider these questions:
Faith in appointed times isn't about having a complete plan. It's about identifying the next faithful step and taking it. Not the whole staircase—just the next stair.
Consider these questions:
"My times are in Your hand." This is surrender language—releasing the timeline, the schedule, the "when" of it all. What would it mean to hold your times more loosely?
Consider these questions:
If you're in a liminal season—between letting go and moving on, between the ending and the beginning—these questions are for you.
The choreography is real, even when we can't see it. The appointed time is unfolding, even when it feels like waiting. And the One who holds our times is trustworthy, even when His timing makes no sense to us. Perhaps—just perhaps—you have come to this moment for such a time as this.
— Bible Ministries InternationalThe full passages referenced throughout this study, presented in the KJ3 Literal Translation. These texts are the foundation—return to them often.
1 To all there is an appointed time, even a time for every purpose under the heavens: 2 a time to bear, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pull up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to lament, and a time to dance; 5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to let perish; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew together; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
9 What advantage is to him who works in that which he did as a laborer. 10 I have seen the task which God has given to the sons of men, to be humbled by it. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has set eternity in their heart, without which man cannot find out the work that God makes from the beginning even to the end.
10 Again Esther spoke to Hathach, and ordered him to go to Mordecai, 11 For all the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces knowing that any man or woman, shall come to the king into the inner court, who is not called, the one law of his is to die; except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter, and he shall live. But I have not been called to come to the king these thirty days.
12 And they told Mordecai Esther's words. 13 And Mordecai said to take back to Esther this word: Do not imagine within yourself to deliver yourself in the king's house more than all the Jews. 14 For if you are completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance shall rise up to the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house shall perish. And who knows if you have reached to the kingdom for such a time as this?
15 And Esther said to take back to Mordecai, 16 Go, gather all the Jews being found in Shushan, and fast for me. And do not eat or drink three days, night or day. My maidens and I will also fast in this way. And so I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law. And if I have perished, I have perished. 17 And Mordecai passed over and did according to all that Esther had commanded him.
26 And He made every nation of men of one blood, to live on all the face of the earth, having determined fore-appointed seasons and boundaries of their dwelling, 27 to seek the Lord, if perhaps they might feel after Him and might find Him, though indeed He not being far from each one of us. 28 For in Him we live and move and exist, as also some of the poets among you have said, For we are also His offspring.
1 To the chief musician. A Psalm of David. In You, O Jehovah, I sought refuge; let me never be ashamed; deliver me in Your righteousness. 2 Stretch out Your ear to me; deliver me quickly, be a strong rock to me, for a house of fortresses to save me. 3 For You are my Rock and my Fortress; and for Your name's sake lead me and guide me. 4 Bring me out of the net that they hid for me, for You are my strength. 5 Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Jehovah, God of truth.
14 But I trusted in You, O Jehovah; I said, You are my God. 15 My times are in Your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who pursue me.
1 And Jehovah had said to Abram, Go out from your land and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great; and you will be a blessing. 3 And I will bless those who bless you, and curse the one despising you. And in you all families of the earth shall be blessed. 4 And Abram went out, even as Jehovah had spoken to him. And Lot went with him. And Abram was a son of seventy-five years when he went out from Haran.
20 And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison house, the place where the king's prisoners were bound. And he was there in the prison house. 21 And Jehovah was with Joseph, and extended kindness to him. And He gave him favor in the eyes of the warden of the prison house. 22 And the warden of the prison house gave all the prisoners in the prison house into Joseph's hand. And all which they did there, he was doing. 23 There was no looking of the warden of the prison house to anything in his hand, in that Jehovah was with him, and Jehovah was prospering what he was doing.
1 And it happened at the end of two years of days, Pharaoh was dreaming...
14 And Pharaoh sent and called Joseph; and they rushed him from the prison. And he shaved and changed his clothing and came in to Pharaoh. 15 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is no one to interpret it; and I have heard about you, saying, you hear a dream to interpret it. 16 And Joseph replied to Pharaoh, saying, Not I! God will answer the welfare of Pharaoh.
16 And Ruth said, Do not entreat me to leave you, to turn back from following you. For where you go, I will go. And where you stay, I will stay. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May Jehovah do to me, and more so, if anything but death part you and me.
1 And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a mighty man of the family of Elimelech. And his name was Boaz. 2 And Ruth of Moab said to Naomi, Let me now go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor. And she said to her, Go, my daughter. 3 And she went. And she came and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she came to meet by circumstance on the parcel of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of Elimelech's family.
4 And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to the reapers, Jehovah be with you. And they answered him, Jehovah bless you. 5 And Boaz said to his young man who had been set over the reapers, Whose is this young woman? 6 And the young man who had been set over the reapers replied and said, She is a young woman of Moab who came with Naomi from the fields of Moab. 7 And she said, Please let me glean, and I shall gather among the sheaves after the reapers. And she came and has remained since morning, even until now. She sat in the house a little while.
8 And Boaz said to Ruth, Do you not hear, my daughter? Do not go to glean another field, and also do not pass through this. And you shall stay close to my young women. 9 Your eyes shall be on the field which they shall reap, and you shall go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? When you are thirsty, then you shall go to the vessels and shall drink from that which the young men draw.
10 And she fell on her face and bowed to the earth, and said to him, Why have I found grace in your eyes, that you should notice me, and I a foreign one? 11 And Boaz answered and said to her, It has been fully revealed to me all that you have done with your mother-in-law after the death of your husband. And you left your father and your mother, and the land of your birth, and came to a people which you had not known before. 12 Jehovah shall repay your work, and your reward shall be complete from Jehovah the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
26 And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin who had been betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mariam (Mary). 28 And entering, the angel said to her, Rejoice Mary, one having received grace! The Lord is with you. You are blessed among women!
29 And seeing this, she was disturbed at his word, and considered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, Fear not, Mariam (Mary), for you have found grace from God. 31 And behold! You will conceive in your womb and bear a Son, and you will call His name Jesus. 32 This One will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob to the ages, and of His kingdom there will be no end.
34 But Mariam (Mary) said to the angel, How will this be since I do not know a man? 35 And answering, the angel said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and on account of this the Holy One being born of you will be called Son of God. 36 And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth! She also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month to her who was called barren; 37 for not will be impossible with God every thing.
38 And Mariam (Mary) said, Behold, the slave woman of the Lord! May it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her.
8 Being called out by faith, Abraham obeyed to go forth to a place which he was going to receive for an inheritance; and he went out not understanding where he goes. 9 By faith he temporarily resided as a foreigner into a land of promise, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the joint-heirs of the same promise; 10 for he waited for a city having foundations, of which the builder and maker is God.
1 And David went from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And his brothers heard, and all his father's house, and they went down to him there. 2 And every man in distress, and every man who had a creditor, and every man bitter of soul, gathered themselves to him. And he became commander over them. And about four hundred men were with him.