{"id":163,"date":"2020-09-23T19:40:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T23:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=163"},"modified":"2020-12-02T20:03:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T01:03:53","slug":"solomons-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/23\/solomons-failures\/","title":{"rendered":"Solomon’s Failures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The reign of King Solomon represents the high water mark of the Old Testament.

For centuries, faithful Jews looked back to the time of Solomon and his father, King David, as a kind of Golden Age.

Solomon was a remarkable person.  He is credited with composing 1,005 songs, authoring more than 3,000 proverbs, and expanding the boundaries of Israel to create a nation three times larger than its modern-day counterpart.  Some of the stone walls built during his administration are still standing three millennia later. 

In a moment resembling a real-life Aladdin story, God appeared to Solomon and said, \u201cAsk for whatever you want me to give you.\u201d  The king of the universe was offering him anything<\/em>. 

Solomon asks for wisdom.  God is so impressed with his request \u2013 that he asks for wisdom instead of a bottomless bank account, or perfect abs, or a personal super-power worthy of a Marvel Comics character \u2013 that God also gives him, along with matchless discernment, virtually every other worldly blessing.  He will become known as the wisest and richest king in the world, and people will travel hundreds of miles just to experience the opulence of his court. 

Things begin so well. 

If this is where Solomon\u2019s story ended, he would be regarded as one of the Bible\u2019s brightest lights.  But when it comes to following God, it\u2019s not how you start.  It\u2019s how you finish. 

Over the course of just a handful of chapters in the book of I Kings, Solomon goes from extreme wisdom to extreme stupidity.  How in the world does this happen?  The answer is\u2026slowly<\/em>.  That\u2019s always how erosion takes place. 

Solomon\u2019s spiritual disintegration can be tracked by three words that show up at important intersections in his story. 

The first appears in I Kings 3:3: \u201cSolomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the statutes of his father David, except<\/u><\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.\u201d  The king of Israel, in other words, leaves some wiggle room in his commitment.

\u201cHigh places\u201d were local hilltops that attracted pagan sex-and-religion cults.  Offering sacrifices and burning incense on a high place was a serious spiritual compromise.  The word \u201cexcept\u201d is evidence that Solomon\u2019s heart, unlike the heart of his father David, does not fully belong to God.

When it comes to spirituality, exceptions are dangerous.  \u201cI will serve you, Lord \u2013 except if you ask me to give up a lot of my free time.  I will obey you, Jesus \u2013 except for my dating life on weekends.  I promise to be your person, Father \u2013 except for secretly undercutting my supervisor, which is something she richly deserves.\u201d 

When it comes to finishing strong, half-heartedness won\u2019t cut it.  \u201cExcept\u201d can\u2019t be in our vocabulary.   

The second word appears a few chapters later.  I Kings 6:38 tells us that \u201c\u2026the temple was finished in all its details, according to its specifications.  [Solomon] had spent seven years building it.\u201d  Continuing to the next chapter, \u201cIt took Solomon thirteen years, however<\/u><\/strong><\/em>, to complete the construction of his palace.\u201d

There\u2019s a warning light flashing here.  Solomon\u2019s palace turns out to be twice the size of the temple.  He allocates twice as much time and twice as many resources building his own house as he invests in God\u2019s house. 

What are you currently attempting to build \u2013 and for whose sake?

If I want to know what I really believe in, I need to ask myself a trio of questions:  What shows up most often on my calendar?  What dominates my VISA bill?  What do I daydream about? 

We may say we\u2019re all-in for the things of God.  But is there an all-about-me \u201chowever\u201d lurking at the center of our lives?   

We arrive, finally, at I Kings 11:3, which is one of the most staggering verses in the Bible: \u201c[Solomon] had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines.\u201d  Apparently the king doesn\u2019t know how reality shows work.  During the last episode, he\u2019s supposed to give a single rose to the woman of his choice \u2013 a lady who is one in a thousand.  Instead, Solomon passes out a thousand roses.  And this is the wisest man in the world? 

Unfortunately for Israel, Solomon\u2019s radically conflicted domestic life turns his heart away from God.   

God had stated clearly, \u2018You must not [marry women from nearby pagan cultures], because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.\u2019 Nevertheless<\/u><\/em>, Solomon held fast to them in love.\u201d (I Kings 11:2)

\u201cNevertheless\u201d is a tragic word.  God says, \u201cDon\u2019t do this.\u201d  But Solomon decides he knows better.  Having been given every advantage and every opportunity, he now charts his own path.  The very man who has overseen the construction of the ultimate monument to God, the Jerusalem temple, turns his own heart into a shopping mall for phony religions.

Except.  However.  Nevertheless<\/strong>. 

These are the words that will ultimately determine whether our personal spiritual Golden Age is behind us, or is still to come. 

It\u2019s worth noting that nobody awards a gold medal to the winner of the 98-meter dash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s because it’s not how you start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s how you finish.
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The reign of King Solomon represents the high water mark of the Old Testament. For centuries, faithful Jews looked back to the time of Solomon and his father, King David, as a kind of Golden Age. Solomon was a remarkable person.  He is credited with composing 1,005 songs, authoring more than 3,000 proverbs, and expanding the boundaries of Israel to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,39],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-excuses","tag-failure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}