A job well-done

I Kings 4:7 Solomon had twelve offers over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household.  Each man had to make provision for one month in the year.

When I read this verse this morning, my first thought was, so they had a job.  What is the importance of that?  They are not different than the millions of people through the years who had had responsibilities.  Granted, it was a big job.  Solomon’s household was large and his need for provisions was huge (re: v.22-26).  For one day alone, his need was for 180 bushels of flour (that is over 5400 a month!), 360 bushels of meal, 10 oxen, 20 cows, 100 sheep, plus numerous other protein sources.  Not only people in the palace needed food.  Solomon also had 4000 stalls of horses and 12,000 soldiers to feed.  In other words, the job of those twelve men was an enormous one.  And they took their job seriously.  We know that because this chapter says they provided faithfully every month.  They let nothing be lacking (v.27).  They even brought barley and straw for the horses (v.28).  I think it is also worth noting that the job they did was commendable enough for their names to be recorded for history’s sake.  

 Ben-hur, Ben-deker, Ben-hesed, Be-abinadab, Baana, Ben-geber, Ahinadab, Ahimaaz, (another) Baana, Jeshoshaphat, Shemei, Geber.   

This list has been my reminder today that if I remain faithful to whatever job I have, even if it is a mundane, ordinary job, if I take my responsibilities seriously, that is a notable and honorable memory I will leave.  Just as those twelve men, my name will be on the list of faithful workers.

Courage to speak the truth

I Kings 22:13b-14 Let your word agree with theirs and speak favorably.  But Micaiah said, “As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what the Lord tells me.”

It is so hard to be the lone voice speaking frankly or speaking the truth.  I have no doubt that this was not an easy thing for Micaiah to do.  All the other prophets were supposedly giving the king the word from the Lord also.  If they had been just people “off the street” that would be one thing, but they were representing God, or gods, which meant that to speak in opposition to their message was no small thing.  At the same time, I see that Ahab knew down deep that Micaiah’s message was from God.  He just did not want to accept it.  It had to have been the Spirit of God in Micaiah giving him the courage to go ahead and speak the truth in order for him to have not only the courage but also the willingness to speak boldly against the prevailing “good advice.”  I hope and pray that I will have that courage and boldness when I need it, because I know that without God’s help, given my personality, I would never be able to do what Micaiah did.

God's way or my way?

I Kings 20:28 Because the Arameans think the Lord is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this vast army into your hands, and you will know that I am the Lord.

It seems ironic to me that the message of the Lord to King Ahab here is really for him and not so much for the enemy he was preparing to fight.  The Arameans’ thought and planning was to meet the Israelites on the plains so their god could not help them because he appeared to them to be a god of the hills.  So naturally, if the Israelites won it would show the Arameans, the enemy, that God was the Lord.  But instead, this message from the Lord is saying that if the Israelites win the battle, it would show them and King Ahab that God was the Lord.  Ahab needed this message as yet another attempt by God to have him turn away from the idols he worshipped instead of the Lord.  Yet even with the victory that followed, he did not change his ways.  Ahab had opportunity after opportunity to see God’s greatness and His superiority over all other gods, but he never changed his ways.  I pray that I will never become so determined to follow my own path that I cannot or will not believe the Truth when I see it or hear it.

Burning my plow

I Kings 19:21 [Elisha] took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them.  He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat… Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.

This seems like such a drastic measure for Elisha to take when he decided to follow God’s calling to work with Elijah as an assistant prophet.  As a farmer by trade, the oxen and plowing equipment represented a valuable part of life.  So why take such a drastic measure?  Someone else could have used them, even if Elisha did not.  This has always puzzled me until today as I thought more about this incident, and realized that perhaps Elisha needed to make a “clean break” with what constituted security for himself in order to help him remember his commitment to Elijah and to God.  He had to burn that plow.  When things would become difficult the temptation to return to the easier ways can become overpowering.  But there were no oxen nor was there any plowing equipment to go back to.  This act was Elisha helping himself remain committed to his new calling.  He was convinced that this was God’s calling on his life and he was doing everything in his power to keep himself true to that commitment.  When he burned the plow he also sacrificed the oxen as an outward sign of his commitment to follow God’s leading, and this act of worship and commitment I am sure was a significant event for him to look back on when the going got tough and the temptation came to quit.  I have seen some of that same principle working in my own life, thinking particularly of the day I had to leave Lebanon due to the civil war and settle into a new life and new ministry in Jordan with nothing of the old life to carry with me except that suitcase of clothing and books.  It was a difficult act at the time, but God was in it, as I was able to see later.  I did not realize it at the time, but leaving everything (including the people I had been working with and the work that was so meaningful to me, not to speak of my earthly belongings) behind in Beirut was my burning of my plow.  It has turned out to have been one of the most significant events of my life, so I can understand how significant this may have been for Elisha not just at the time, but also perhaps throughout the remainder of his life.

What kind of pathway am I carving out?

I Kings 16:30-31 Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.  He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.

It is impossible to fall up, as they say, and this is clearly evident in the saga of the kings of Israel.  It all began with Jeroboam when he made two golden calf idols for the people to worship because he was afraid they would lose their allegiance to him if they went to Jerusalem to worship (12:28ff).  He went downhill quickly after that, and began a chain of events in his descendants that was all downhill.  Nadab, his son did evil and committed the same sin (15:26).  Baasha (15:34) committed the same sin after Nadab, and his son Elah, as well.  16:23 says they aroused God’s anger by their worthless idols.  It did not stop there.  After Elah came Zimri, who followed the ways of Jeroboam and committed the same sins (16:19), and then came Omri who sinned more than all those before him (16:25), and now comes his son Ahab, more sinful still.  It behooves me to stay true to God and to my obedience to Him because I could otherwise begin a chain of evil and disobedience in those who follow me.  What kind of path am I carving for those who follow after me?

Listen to the Word

I Kings 13:21b You have defied the word of the Lord and have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you.

I have struggled to understand this verse, this story through the years, every time I read it.  It seems so unfair of God to bring punishment to this man of God who was misled by another prophet.  The prophet convinced him that it was alright to retract his obedience to what God had commanded him to do.  After all, it was a prophet who told him it was OK.  Today, however, as I was once again reading this story and feeling that same frustration, I suddenly realized that the message of this incident to me is a reminder that God’s Word should always take precedence over any other person’s interpretation of its meaning to me.  If I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God has spoken to me about something that I read in His Word, this is the message for me to heed.  Although I realize that there have been people who have misinterpreted the Word and turned it into something that was not biblically sound and that is a danger I must stay alert to, it is nevertheless imperative for me to listen to the Spirit of God as He speaks to me through the Word. If the message I receive from the word agrees with Scripture in general and if I have prayed over that message, I can rely on God to confirm it to me.  If I am in a strong and solid relationship with God, His Word will speak Truth to me and that is what I must heed.  Nothing else…

Fully obedient, wholly devoted

I Kings 11:2b, 4 Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love … 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.

This is my vivid reminder of a couple of things I must remember as I grow older:

1. It is possible for me to come to love and hold fast to things I should not love, and that I know I should not love.  Even though I have known God and walked with Him for a long time now, I am still vulnerable to give my heart away if I am not careful to continually and diligently obey God in every area of my life.  Solomon held fast to his wives in love, and he was not even supposed to have married them in the first place, which reminds me of how diligently obedient I must be in all areas of my life in order to not lose my heart to the wrong things.
2. My years of experience with God and my maturity of those years will not be enough to protect my heart from wandering.  Only my current fully devoted heart, fully devoted to loving Him supremely, only that will protect me from falling into love with something else and consequently falling away from devotion to the Lord.  I must remain diligent until the very end, and by God’s grace with the help of His Holy Spirit, I will do so.

 

Act like a man

I Kings 2:2b-3 So be strong, act like a man, and observe what the Lord your God requires.  Walk in obedience to him … so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go…

David, out of his lengthy and vast experience of walking with God, gave Solomon a nutshell of advice that would help him as king.  “Be a man,” he said, “and obey God.”  It is almost as though he was saying, “Just because it isn’t always easy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it!  Buck up, be a man, and do what is right and do whatever you are required to do.”  Sometimes that is how I have felt … like it was too hard to do what was right, and yet I knew I had to do it anyway.  And the result is prosperity of heart and soul that I gained even if it was not material prosperity.  That is where I think a lot of people misunderstand what God intends as the result of determined obedience.