The Benefits of Waiting

The following is a classic Old Testament story about the benefits of waiting for God to bless and promote you. This posture is antithetical to today’s grab all you can while you can attitude. However, seeing a man like Mordecai and how God promoted him is refreshing.

Mordecai, found in Esther’s intriguing story, is a man worth imitating. Mordecai had an enemy who hated him. This rival was Haman, a powerful official in King Xerxes’ kingdom who hated Jews.  Through deception, he 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 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. He discovered that Mordecai had saved the King’s life by uncovering a plot to kill him. The King demanded that something be done to honor Mordecai. The King asked, “Who is in the court?” Haman had just entered. The King’s 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 believes that the King is preparing to honor him, so he gives him a great 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). Then the King announced I want you to honor Mordecai.

Haman was humiliated as he led Mordecai through the streets and proclaimed, “This is Mordecai, the man the King desires to honor.” This would have been a heady moment for most, but not for Mordecai because he was committed to living 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.” (Esther 6:12).  Mordecai had long trusted his life to God.  If God wanted to promote him, then the promotion would find him. He would carry out his duties in faithfulness to God. I pray that God will give us more men and women like Mordecai who are interested in serving God, not self-promotion.

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Family First

 

Keeping first things first is a challenge for most of us. It can be one of the most significant challenges we face. Our work, families, and devotion to God compete for our attention. Our priorities can get mixed up, and we must realign them. We should honor God first and then our family above all other interests. That means we try to put our family above our work.

John B. Watson is an example of someone very successful in his career. He is one of the most famous psychologists in the history of psychology. Watson appeared to have talent, good looks, a charismatic personality, and a successful career. However, his life is a study of personal disaster. Nowhere is the tragedy more evident than in Watson’s life.

He wrote many widely received books, but his book on parenting was a real success. What an enigma that Watson authored a book on parenting while he was a failed parent. He had multiple affairs. One was a notoriously public affair that ultimately led to his divorce and termination from John Hopkins University. However, the most deficient part of his credentials was his parenting skills. Both his sons suffered severe depression. One son committed suicide, and the other mentally collapsed after fighting suicidal impulses. Watson’s daughter suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts. She attributed her depression to have begun around the same time as her father’s scandal.

Two of Watson’s granddaughters had problems. One committed suicide, and the other suffered from depression, alcoholism, and suicidal thoughts. Although Watson was a brilliant scientist and made an enormous contribution to psychology, he was, at the same time, an abject failure as a husband, father, and grandfather. Watson is the ultimate example of wasted talent and mixed-up priorities. Next to God, our families are the most critical endeavor in our lives. Priorities never stay arranged for very long. However, when God is the main priority of our life, it is amazing how everything else works for the better.

Backbone

 

We live in a day when men and women who choose to follow the teachings and principles of scripture; can be portrayed as a bigot. However, true believers choose to follow their convictions regardless of the fallout. Jesus told us, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). That is what it means to be a committed follower of Christ.

I was thinking of Daniel this week, who was committed to his convictions and lived in a similar culture. He was just a young man when he was taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar’s army. Upon arrival in Babylon, he was enrolled in academic training for three years to learn the language and literature of the Babylonians so that they could change his worldview. They started by changing Daniel’s name to Belteshazzar. They may have changed his name, but they didn’t change Daniel. They attempted to make him forget his faith but failed because Daniel remained faithful to his God.

I believe that when his parents gave him the name Daniel, they communicated what it meant: “God is my judge.” They always taught him to remember that God was the one he would ultimately give an account to, not man. These parents sent a sharp weapon into the land of Babylon when their son was taken captive.

Those committed to following the Scriptures must stand up against oppression, even coercion, from our own government. Let us take courage because if a man named Daniel remained true to his principles, we can too. Daniel’s name stuck through several successive kingdoms. It stuck because Daniel lived up to the meaning of his name. All those kings regarded him as Daniel and not by his Babylonian name.