Esther 1 – Lesson Learned

Many lessons and reminders are found in the story of Esther. In just the first chapter, we see the theme of pride and excess, the impairing nature of too much wine, the story of consequence, insight to the sovereignty of God shown in how Esther was used to displace the evil plans of Haman… the list goes on and on.

I want to key in on a very small lesson in this chapter that I feel has big impact; King Xerxes had what we might call, “a situation”. Some commentaries suggest he caused it himself by making such an easily disobey-able decree at such a wine altering moment. No matter the circumstance, a dilemma was at hand, and he needed to make a decision regarding Queen Vashti. If he ignored her blatant disobedience, he feared there would be “no end of disrespect and discord” (vs.18).

So what did he do? He sought counsel, as he often did:

“Since it was customary for the king to consult experts in matters of law and justice, he spoke with the wise men who understood the times and were closest to the king—Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena and Memucan, the seven nobles of Persia and Media who had special access to the king and were highest in the kingdom.” – Esther 1:13-14

Seeking counsel is a tricky thing. I think we trick ourselves. Sometimes we seek counsel only from those who we know will tell us what we want to hear. Sometimes we seek counsel, not to get a new answer, but to get people on our side. Most of the time, we don’t seek counsel at all. Instead, we settle in our own minds what we need or want to do and seek affirmation. That’s not counsel, that’s validation. If we look hard enough, we can always find someone who will agree with us.

But not only is seeking counsel necessary, it’s a biblical precedent.

“Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel.” – Proverbs 27:9

There are a ton of other scriptures I prefer to use when referencing seeking counsel. But this one stands out to me today. Why? I think there is an additional wisdom revealed within this verse: The concept of a friend who is earnest. King Xerxes sought counsel, not only from those who were “wise”, but also those who were “closest” to him (vs.13) This brings light to a list of questions we should ask ourselves when seeking counsel. While this list is not exhaustive, and the answers might not disqualify certain advice, they should certainly be considered in how much weight we give each word of counsel:

1.Does this person really know me?

Many of our accountability relationships are full of people who “think” they know us, but really only know what we’ve told them. So they may not really know us. They may know about us and this relationship might serve a very safe and real purpose in our lives, but for one reason or another (maybe our own pride or insecurity) we have not been fully vulnerable with them. I think a great example of this might be a professional mentor or peer. We might find ourselves being very open about professional issues or even leadership strategies, but that relationship can often be void of personal transparency. Especially when and if we are concerned about protecting our reputation with that person.

2.Does this person really care about and love me?

This is an obvious mandate when speaking of important issues and probably the most natural to identify and trust. These people are not going to just throw out advice from the hip, they are going to seriously consider its impact on your life. They will be just as concerned about giving you bad counsel as they are in giving you good counsel.

3.Does this person seek “God’s best” or “My best”?

Here’s a dangerously difficult question. When we are close to someone and really want them to succeed, we tend to offer advice that would suit them. Godly counsel comes from someone who has the ability to love us, yet would still choose God’s best for us over what they think we might prefer. Even if they thought that advice wouldn’t be received well. I think we know who those people are in our life. Unfortunately, these are the people we often stay away from in certain areas… red flag, yo!

4.Does this person’s life reflect a life that I respect?

I’m not just talking about success. How about the fruit of joy, peace, contentment? How about a strong marriage and a home that at least appears to be in order? Things always seem a little better than they really are. If these are major issues in someone’s life, even if they love you deeply, it should be a spiritual red flag in the realm of advice giving. This doesn’t make this person a bad person, it may just help us see which areas we should seek advice from them in, and which areas we should stay away from.

5.Am I really seeking counsel or validation?

This is a self-examination question. If we’ve already made up our mind, we’re not seeking counsel. We’re politicians. If this is a pattern for us, we may even need to search our hearts in the area of manipulation and insecurity, especially as leaders. We need to make sure we haven’t fooled ourselves into thinking we are seeking counsel when we’re not. Why? As a believer, we are then neglecting biblical wisdom. This is not a good sign that we are going in the right direction.

6.Am I seeking different perspectives?

Many times we hang out and do life with people who are like us. They look like us. They think like us. They’d probably answer most questions like us. We might already know what they’d say before we even ask. This is not good either. We need to intentionally put different personalities in our “inner-circle” of advice giving. This might feel like a bit of therapeutic “Russian Roulette”, but if they are people who really know, love, and care about us, at least we’ll find some honest answers.

This is really hard for us, more so than we probably know. In his book “Taking Advice”, Dan Ciampa exposes the reality that good leaders often fail at advice taking. It doesn’t take much effort to see that’s probably true. This exposes what I think is revealing about King Xerxes: He doesn’t just seek advice with an answer already in his mind, he sought advice, received good counsel, and followed it:

“The king and his nobles were pleased with this advice, so the king did as Memucan proposed.” – Esther 1:21

Father, search our hearts. Help us to consider how we can really encourage each other towards love and good deeds. Help us to see our own agendas in respect to yours. Help us to not only be good advice givers, but to be great at taking advice as well. The hard truth is that this will take a real humility and concern for others. We’ll have to swallow our pride and our agendas. Soften our hearts and put us in that place. Amen.