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