Have you ever been consumed by one disappointment? So obsessed with one thing that everything else pales in comparison? You might identify with Haman.
Haman was the king of Persia’s right-hand man, and Persia was pretty much the world at the time: 4th Century BC. The king had agreed to wipe out an entire group of people at his counsel.
In Esther 5:10-13, we read him brag about his success to his wife and friends. He “recounted to them the splendor of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honored him, and how he had advanced him above the officials and the servants of the king. Then Haman said, ‘Even Queen Esther let no one but me come with the king to the feast she prepared. And tomorrow also I am invited by her together with the king. Yet all this is worth nothing to me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.’”
Woah woah woah! That was a quick turn. From Haman’s own mouth we know that he had everything that most people desire: wealth, status, and family. But he says it is worth nothing to him. This is because Haman did not value the riches or the king’s favor in and of themselves: he wanted to be universally admired. Millions of people submitted to his rule, but not everyone. He was second in the kingdom but not everyone’s idol. Thus, everything he did achieve, however close to his desire, was worthless.
From Haman’s own mouth we know that he had everything that most people desire: wealth, status, and family. But he says it is worth nothing to him.
This made me ask: what do I truly value? What is the thing that I need so desperately that would make the other 99% of things I want worthless? As Christians, we know what we should desire: what we should pant for like the deer in the desert and desire more than our necessary food. Like Paul, we should confess, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:8-11).
Paul desires, more than his own righteousness, works, achievement, status, comfort, to know Christ: to know him by sharing his sufferings, becoming like him, and being resurrected with him.
As Christians, we know what we should desire: what we should pant for like the deer in the desert and desire more than our necessary food.
We can know Christ. Jesus came to give us life, to give us hope and a future, to be our everything. Let us look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who loved us enough to pursue our redemption away from the throne of heaven to the anguish of the cross. Let us follow him, knowing that everything else is worthless without him.
“We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true—in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” 1 John 5:20
Comments