It's not difficult to determine the quality of tea.

All you need to do is dip the tea bag in boiling water and then take a sip.

The truth is in the flavor.

In like manner, to measure a person's integrity, simply drop them into an impossible situation

and see what happens.

Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall points to one of his favorite Old Testament characters.

Esther lived in treacherous times, and in the crucible of a crisis, she discovered something

that made all the difference,

the quiet, transforming power of waiting on the Lord.

When you wait on the Lord, you don't have to walk around in a day's humming sweet hour prayer

or some other old hymn. You don't have to go out on some hillside and strum a guitar all by

yourself. Mostly, you keep up your regular activities. You go right on with your business. Your spirit, however, settles into a posture

of trust as you prayerfully place your problem into the Lord's hands, and you wait for his

timing and for his strength. That's right where we find Esther in today's account.

When she accepted her mission to save her people the Jews,

she asked Mordecai to gather all the Jews in Sousa

to pray and to fast for three days. She and her maidens did the same.

The three-day fast was a quiet yet powerful interlude in the queen's life.

Waiting on the Lord strengthened her resolve. So when it came time for her to act, she was prepared

emotionally and spiritually, and she knew that God was with her. I want to read for you sections

from the fifth chapter of Esther, which describes the precarious moment when Queen Esther goes before the king,

uninvited. I'm reading again from the New American Standard Bible. Listen, please, as chapter

...