This is the tenth letter in The Mordecai Framework: Leadership Lessons for Chiefs of Staff. This a blog series written as if Mordecai himself were penning personal letters to a trusted friend.
Mordecai Speaks:
My dear friend,
My enemy died on the very gallows he built for me. And here is what I did while it happened: nothing. I schemed nothing. I lifted not a finger against him. I did not have to.
You remember Haman — the man the king lifted above every official, the man the whole court bowed to at the gate. Every servant bent low as he passed. Every servant but one. I would not bow. So he built a gallows fifty cubits high and planned to hang me on it.
But, at the queen's banquet, Haman's plot unraveled before the king, and one of the king's own servants spoke up: "Behold, the gallows Haman made for Mordecai still stands at his house." The king said only three words: "Hang him thereon." And they hanged Haman on the gallows he had built for me.
Sit with that, friend. The instrument of my death became the instrument of his. I did not build it. I did not spring it. His own hands raised it, and his own pride walked him up its steps.
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Haman did not need me to destroy him — he was doing the work himself. And prideful people are predictable. When the king asked how to reward "the man the king delights to honor," Haman assumed it could only be himself and described the most lavish honor he could imagine. The king then made him bestow every bit of it on me. His pride wrote the very script of his humiliation.
When I was led through the city in royal robes to the shout of the people, I said nothing. I simply returned to my seat at the gate, as on a thousand ordinary days before. The vindication was not mine to celebrate — it was God's to deliver. So when your rival stumbles, say nothing. Return to your seat. Let the silence preach.
Now, I will not pretend this is easy. Every instinct screams to build a gallows back. So hear what I most want you to hear: keep your hands clean..
Hear me carefully, because this is delicate. I am not telling you to hunt down everyone who wrongs you — that is the very scheming I've warned you against. I am telling you about the compromises in your own heart: the small dishonesty you keep making room for, the resentment you feed in private, the corner you cut because everyone cuts it. What you refuse to confront in yourself will, given time, grow into the thing that undoes you. Deal with it now, while it is small — before it builds its own gallows in your soul.
So here is my charge to you, my friend. When the proud rise against you, do not build back. Do your work with clean hands. Keep your tongue still when vindication comes. Guard your heart against the quiet compromises no one else can see. And leave the timing to God, who sees every gallows ever built in secret.
You do not have to win the fight. You only have to stay faithful while God does. And the steps your enemy climbs in pride are steps you never have to climb at all.
Trust that the One who placed you at this gate has never once been mocked by the schemes of proud men. In His time, and by His hand, every gallows built in the dark finds its true occupant
.I am always near.
With deep respect for what you carry,
Mordecai