“I am a Senior Partner of this Consultancy. You are a nothing! I say what goes and what doesn’t! Be afraid, be very afraid!“. His white knuckles pressed hard into the surface of my desk as he leaned over and yelled into my face.
As I was reviled that day, it was clear that this prideful man had all the power, prestige, protection and could do with it as he pleased. So he thought.
But corruption has it’s way of eating away at the foundations in which Pride stands on.
Exposed, but still protected, this king-of-the-heap fled to a cushy promotion back in the United States.
Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven, “This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.”
Daniel 4:29-32
And, just like King Nebuchadnezzar, this man thought he could not be touched. But a couple years later the Consultancy firm, that he was a Senior Partner of, crashed and burned worldwide in the wake of the Enron, World.com and the largest corporate collapse in Australia of HIH Insurance.
In the book, “Principles of Contemporary Corporate Governance“, J. J. Du Plessis, James McConvill, Mirko Bagaric wrote on page 154, about the consultants ‘dishonest practices’ and were a major contributing factor in the corporate collapses.
How the mighty fall.
But let not the story end there. I don’t know where this man is today. But I do hope that, like King Nebuchadnezzar, he “acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes“, that he be restored, and better for it.
May he come to know what true Repentance is all about.