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It’s a tricky thing living in the most prosperous country in the world. There’s an almost unavoidable tendency to put our trust in things rather than God. How much time do we spend planning our retirement or career path? How does it compare with the time we invest in God’s Word?
Haman found out just how slippery the things of the world are, and how quickly they can be taken away. He spent all his time pinning medals on his tunic and getting the latest turban instead of trying to help others.Haman put all his trust into his own position and authority, and when th at was gone (or actually just threatened), he had nothing else on which to rely. Even his friends and wife told him he had nothing left to live for.
BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?
Back in the 1929 stock market crash, hundreds and thousands of businesses went under, and there’s a running visual joke in Hollywood about despondent bank owners and whatnot hurling themselves from office windows. In actuality, the problem wasn’t a lack of money, and many of the people who held on came out ok in the end. What the pavement divers lost was hope. If your hope is in money (or employment, or education), sooner or later it will fail you. What will happen when the rug is pulled out from under you?
This doesn’t mean that money, or education, or possessions, or retirement plans, or anything of the sort is wrong. It is perfectly Biblical to be wise with our money. The problem is when our hope is in our possessions instead of the Provider. Corrie Ten Boom used to say that one of the secrets to living for God was to “hold loosely to the things of the world.” Notice that it’s not necessarily wrong to hold worldly things, we just need to hold them loosely so we don’t end up trusting them instead of God.
KNOW WHEN TO FOLD ‘EM
For Haman, what would have happened if he would have gone to the king and said, “I made a mistake; you have honored a Jew today, and we should honor the Jews throughout the empire tomorrow.” Esther may have abandoned her plan, the Jews would have been saved, Mordecai would have been elevated, and Haman may either have stayed as the king’s top adviser or at least remained in the inner circle.
Instead, he clung desperately to the only thing he knew, and he lived just long enough to see all of it taken away.
Our prayer today is that we will cling to God and hold loosely to everything else.