Living the high life as royalty, complete with answered prayers, world-renown fame and riches galore, Solomon drifted from God.
When presented with the option to pray for whatever he wanted, Solomon humbled himself. Rather than seeking to satisfy the human desire for material things, he chose to ask for wisdom. As newly established king of Israel, he did not know it all. In order to rule God’s people effectively, Solomon needed God’s type of wisdom.
Pleased with this request, God answered Solomon’s prayer for wisdom and gifted him with bonus blessings. He promised Solomon an unmatched level of wisdom that no one before ever had and no one after will ever have. He was then given riches and fame. God also promised him long life if he continued to walk in obedience.
Yet, even with all the wisdom and understanding in the world, we cannot stop praying to God when things are going well. We have to be diligent in maintaining our relationship with God. We need to make Him our main priority in all things.
It doesn’t take much for us to drift. But if we don’t quickly reroute when we start drifting, we’ll soon find ourselves in an unplanned and unrecognizable destination.
There is still hope in this story. Though Solomon drifted away from God, God never drifted away from him. Solomon was never stripped of his God-given blessings and gifts. His disobedience did have consequences for him in his later years as well as the generations that followed him, but God never stopped loving Him.
We drift. It doesn’t take much, just a tiny nudge off the path and we’re slowly veering in a slightly different direction. We can be encouraged by Solomon’s experience.
God is there. He’s not eagerly watching, hoping for us to mess up so that He can strip us of our blessings. Rather He’s anticipating our call, for us to realize that we need Him.
And God lovingly answers our calls too.
