Self-centredness

“When Haman entered, the king asked him, ‘What should be done for the man the king delights to honour?’
“Now Haman thought to himself, ‘Who is there that the king would rather honour than me?’” Esther 6:6
The book of Esther is one that would be worth making into a movie. First, the girl who wins the beauty pageant (Esther) who is advised by her cousin (Mordecai) to keep her nationality secret. Then, the villain (Haman), who is favoured by the king but holds a grudge against Mordecai (not knowing he is related to Esther), because he won’t bow down. What Haman doesn’t know, is that Mordecai saved the king’s life on one occasion, by reporting an assassination plot by two of his officials.
At the same time Haman approaches the king to ask for permission to execute Mordecai, the king is reading the account of how Mordecai saved his life. Haman enters, and the king asks, ‘What should be done for the man the king delights to honour?’
Naturally, Haman thinks the king is talking about himself. So he thinks of all the things he would like to be done to him: wearing a royal robe and being paraded through the streets on a royal horse. He tells the king so, and the king thinks it is a great idea and instructs him to go and do it all for Mordecai.
The rest of the book is well worth reading, but here is the point from this part: Haman, in his self-centredness, sets himself up for humiliation. He is blinded to the fact that there are other people in the world whom the king might have wanted to honour. Even Mordecai, the man he hated, was in the king’s good books.
We all have self-centred tendencies. Let us be aware of them, and not be blinded by them.