THE KING WHO HATED HIMSELF

Ahasuerus was a confused king. He had everything he could want except happiness. He could not understand why all of his money and power did not make him happy. He had guilty feelings in his heart about the mean things he did to people. He kept these guilty thoughts a secret because he wanted people to think he was strong. Even though it made things worse he always treated people cruelly so that people would be afraid of him. He had watched his father treat people like this before he died and left him the kingdom and so Ahasuerus thought that this was the only way to be a strong king. What he didn't know was that his father had the same guilty feelings for the things he had done.

Always having to be on guard and keeping his guilt buried deep inside made Ahasuerus worry that someone might suspect he was not as tough as he seemed to be. One day, just to make sure that the people knew how powerful he was, Ahasuerus ordered a whole company of soldiers to be killed because they had not done a good job of building a bridge. This meanness, along with the fact that his army had just lost some important battles, made two of the king's guards decide to kill him. They were caught before they were able to carry out their plan but this caused Ahasuerus to have many sleepless nights.

Recently he had sent his wife away because she refused to do something sinful he asked her to do and even more recently he had ordered a man's son to be cut in half because the old man had asked that his son be released from the king's service. Ahasuerus tossed and turned while he remembered how he had caused his army to march between the two halves of that boy's body.

What this wicked king never realized was that he was torturing himself. He was caught in a trap of selfishness which finally ended one day when the head of the palace guard killed him. The confused king had died without understanding what he had done to himself. If only he could have had the opportunity to read God's word which says...

Taken from Esther 1-6

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