How are you using your power?

I started my day reading beautiful and inspiring messages from both men and women, celebrating the immense power and influence of women. Two of my book coaching clients are women who had the courage to change their identity from a crippled victimised state. They not only transformed their lives, but are influencing others as well. This Woman’s day appeared to be a poster day of how women can positively influence the world.

My day ended with a domestic incident when a woman disrupted over 64 households after 23H30 after over an hour of screaming profanity. It resulted in us having to call security. It was a moment where I realised just how much power we have. The question is how we choose to use our power.

There are layers of meaning in everything, and unless we choose to learn from both our victories and our failures, we minimise our power. So for this newsletter, I am going to delve into two biblical historical female characters.

I am mindful that not everyone who reads my newsletters is of the Christian faith, so some readers may have a different perspective. However, the purpose of this article is for us to face our personal choices and not to debate the validity of historical facts. 

John Maxwell, an esteemed leadership expert, often speaks about the law of influence. As I am a fan of his work, I would like to look at our two characters from this law of influence perspective.

Our first character, Jezebel, was a Phoenician princess. This daughter of Ethbaal of Sidon entered the pages of Hebrew history in the ninth century B.C.E, when she married King Ahab of the northern kingdom of Israel. The purpose of this marriage was to restore a former alliance between the two nations. Of course, in these times, many women were political pawns, but that did not mean that they were without influence. In contrast, monarchs used women for that reason, because they possessed the power of influence. However, as with most humans, we decide on how to use our influence. 

I can only imagine what it must have been like for a young woman to enter a marriage with someone who thought of her god as the enemy. The terrain she entered was different, both spiritually and physically. Scholars say that her homeland was probably lush, whereas this new home by comparison was an arid, desertlike terrain. 

However, Jezebel was a spirited woman who soon got King Ahab to condone the practices of her faith, which violated his. It did not take long for him to become an active participant. Now as a writer, I know that no character is 100% good or bad. The best characters are multifaceted. But a wise storyteller knows how to highlight the qualities of their character’s choices to drive home the moral of the story. The Hebrew culture was not completely intolerant of foreigners. They celebrated Ruth the Moabite for her loyalty. But our poster bad girl, Jezebel, was no Ruth. She did some pretty intolerable things to get what she wanted. In one such instance, her husband, King Ahab, coveted an area of land. Although it was a vineyard, he wanted to use it to plant some vegetables because it was close to his palace. 

The vineyard owner, Naboth, had inherited it from his family and when King Ahad offered to buy it Naboth declined. Israelite law and custom protected the right of inheritance, which is something that King Ahab fully understood. However, the King had a sulky moment and lay on his bed even refusing to eat. No one likes a sulky spouse, and so Jezebel undertook the task of getting the vineyard. 

The Queen, using the King’s seal, arranged a day of fasting and seated Naboth in a place of prominence. Then, she arranged for two “scoundrels” to falsely accuse him of blasphemy and against God and his king. Naboth sentence for this crime of public stoning. It was the tipping point for Elijah the leading prophet of the time and from then it was all out “war” between the two of them. Jezebel’s legacy of leadership portrays her as a vindictive queen who, like our neighbour, was not above vocalising her hatred to all who would hear.

In contrast, the biblical Queen Ester chose to use influence in an entry differently. She became Queen of Persia and Medes after her marriage to Ahasuerus (Xerxes I). Ester’s cousin Mordecai took her in and raised her after she was orphaned at a young age. After disposing of his first wife, the king was on a quest to find a new one. Ester was one of many young women taken into the harem. Whoever pleased the king the most would ultimately become his wife. This was a path to power that an empowered woman would likely not choose, but it was accepted during this period of history. 

During the Babylonian exile, Mordecai warned Ester (also known as Hadassah) about disclosing her Jewish heritage because of prejudice.

The custom was that none of the wives could enter the king’s presence without being summoned. It was something that a queen, especially one who was already concealing her heritage, would have taken seriously. The penalty for this violation was death. 

There came a time when the king’s visor was plotting the death of all the Jews in the land.  It was one of those personal vendettas that has caused the demise of many cultures. 

When Mordecai learned of this degree, he approached Ester. By all accounts, she was still a young woman when this happened. But rather than flee in terror or explode in a fit of rage, she timed her approach. After praying and fasting, she made a bold move to approach the king unsummoned. 

While he had the power to punish her for this breach in protocol, he granted her petition to host a banquet in his and his visor’s honour. It was at this banquet that she petitioned the king to spare her life and the life of her people.

The king did not know that the decree he had authorised would come at the cost of his queen. Haman did not know of Esters Jewish heritage and upon realising his folly he fell upon the Queen begging for mercy. The king had stepped outside for a moment and upon reentering the room; he found Haman on the queen’s couch. The king’s outrage led to him ordering that officials hang Haman on the very gallows Haman had built to kill his enemy, Mordecai.

While both queen’s actions led to the death of one man, their motives and approaches were vastly different. People considered Jezebel a self seeking, vile and murderous queen, while they hailed Esther as a hero.

Both men and women have the power to influence each other and our circle of influence. In honour of this woman’s day, let’s choose how we wield that power.