Daily Devotions

During the Lenten season, members of Faith Lutheran Church have written our daily devotions.  Today’s writer is Jennifer Finley.

⁹Then the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice,¹⁰and had commanded him concerning this matter, that he should not follow other gods; but he did not observe what the Lord commanded.¹¹Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your mind and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. ¹²Yet for the sake of your father David I will not do it in your lifetime; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. ¹³I will not, however, tear away the entire kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.” 1 Kings 11:9-13

OK, let’s start this reflection with the fact that Solomon was the son of the man who was “a man after God’s own heart.” I mean Solomon is the son of David and Bathsheba – they knew about God. They knew all about God’s overwhelming mercy and grace on one hand and his impatience with sin on the other. Surely, they passed their faith on to Solomon, right?  Silly Solomon, what were you thinking?!!? Why couldn’t you keep your eyes on God and defeat other temptations, other interests, other things you wanted to do?!!? (Oh wait…I don’t think I’m talking about Solomon any longer)

Our God’s expectations are really not that confusing or difficult to understand, but we are like a car that constantly needs its tires to be aligned. We are always veering off the road with God. We are selfish, short attention-spanned creatures who are always focused on ourselves. And often – that will have consequences. Not often, will it mean the relinquishing of a kingdom, but it can be other things in our life equally as devastating.  Alcohol, drugs, pornography, work, success, “me-time,” there are a never ending list of idols vying for our time and attention. Solomon followed these “other gods” right out of his family’s kingdom. We can learn from this.

Let us pray:  Heavenly Father, we know that all good things come from you, but we are constantly in a struggle between your will and our own. Please break our wills and form us to be who you created us to be. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

This entry was posted on March 20, 2014 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.