In 1860 the
Pony Express was launched as a brave entrepreneurial endeavor. The service
delivered the mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California, a
distance of some 2000 miles. It took nearly 100 different riders for the mail
to make the 10-day journey. However, President Lincoln’s Inaugural address was
delivered in a record 7 days and 17 hours. The cost was $2.50 an
ounce—extremely expensive. Riders ranged in age from 11-40 and did not weigh
over 125 pounds. The longest ride was made by Bob Haslam, who rode 370 miles.
Each rider was expected to ride around 75-100 miles per day. Though the
advertisements recruited riders that must be willing to “risk their lives,”
there wasn’t much action. 99% of the riders just rode their horses in mundane
and ordinary circumstances in silence with no spectators, yet these men did
their job with excellence.
That same
thing can be said of most of us who live out our Christian faith in very
mundane ways with no lime light or spectators. However, if you live your life
for God, it makes no difference who sees or who doesn’t because you are living
your life for God.
Mordecai,
who is found in the intriguing story of Esther, is one such man. Mordecai had
an enemy who hated him. This enemy was Haman, a powerful official in King
Xerxes’ kingdom who hated Jews like Mordecai. Haman, through deception, devised
a plan to kill Mordecai and the entire Jewish population. He was so sure of his
plans that he prepared 75 feet gallows to hang Mordecai on. However, there was
one detail that Haman overlooked—Mordecai’s God.
Just as
Haman was gaining the power he needed to eliminate Mordecai, God intervened in
his sovereign way. The king could not sleep, so he called for the record books
to be read to him. In so doing he discovered that Mordecai had saved the Kings’
life by uncovering a plot to kill the king. The King demanded that something be
done to honor Mordecai. The king asked, “Who is in the court?" Now Haman
had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the king about
hanging Mordecai on the gallows he had erected for him. His attendants
answered, "Haman is standing in the court."
"Bring
him in," the king ordered. When Haman entered, the king asked him,
"What should be done for the man the king delights to honor?" (Esther
6:4-6)
Haman is so
arrogant that he actually believes that the king is preparing to honor him, so
he gives him a wonderful list: "For the man the king delights to honor,
have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden,
one with a royal crest placed on its head. Then let the robe and horse be
entrusted to one of the king's most noble princes. Let them robe the man the
king delights to honor, and lead him on the horse through the city streets,
proclaiming before him, 'This is what is done for the man the king delights to
honor!'" (Esther 6:7-9)
Haman was humiliated
as he led Mordecai through the streets and proclaimed “This is Mordecai the man
the Kings desires to honor.” This would have been a pretty heady moment for
most, but not for Mordecai because he was committed to living his life in
excellence for God. The next verse is an eloquent testimony to the life of
Mordecai:
“Afterward
Mordecai returned to the king's gate. But Haman rushed home, with his head
covered in grief, and told Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that
had happened to him.” (Esther 6:12)
Alexander
Raleigh wrote:
A proud ambitious man would have said to himself,
“No more of the king’s gate for me! I shall direct my steps to the king’s
palace, and hold myself ready for honor…which surely must now be at hand.”
Mordecai seems to have said with himself, “If these things are designed for me
in God’s good providence, they will find me. But they must seek me, for I shall
not seek them. Those who confer them know my address: “Mordecai, at the king’s
gate,’ will still find me. Let the crowd wonder and disperse. I have had enough
of their incense. Let Haman go whither he will, he is in the hands of the Lord.
Let my friends at home wait; they will all hear in time…I can wait best at the
old place and in the accustomed way—At the Kings’ Gate.”[1]
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