Turn Your Hearts

King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.

Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue—the royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the current price. They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.

1 Kings 10:23-29

 

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

 

1 Kings 11:1-4

 

Have you ever just wanted to stop the clock and enjoy your surroundings, totally? At one point the nation of Israel had blossomed. Solomon was king and had build a magnificent dwelling place for God, who moved in with a blaze of glory. Finally united under a righteous king, they are at peace.

 

But wait, it doesn’t end there. His marriage to many foreign women brought him down and turned his heart away from God. The rest is history. Israel did not exist again until the 20th century and has had to fight its way back inch by inch.

 

Just as the seasons of the year continue, so do the cycles of life – birth, death, success and failure, sin and confession. Although we have no power to stop the clock while we are enjoying the good times, we can rest in God’s promise that eventually all bad times will end.

 

In good times and bad, God never changes. Turn your heart to Him.

 

Our Daily Bread – May 1, 2011