The life and reign of King Solomon in Israel illustrates this quite clearly. Solomon was known for his wisdom - the thing he asked God for. King Solomon had it all, but he was led astray and ended up far from God's ways.
1 Kings 3 records a well-known part of Solomon's story in Scripture. This is where he is given the chance to ask God for whatever he wants and he chooses to ask for wisdom. Because of his choice, God blessed him, not only with the wisdom he asked for, but also wealth and a long life (1 Kings 3:10-15).
Every time I've turned to this passage, that has been the focus. And it's important. But, the other day when I started reading, I was stopped by just the first three verses of this chapter. They have something important to teach us.
1 Kings 3:1-3 says:
"Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. He brought her to the city of David until he finished building his palace and the temple of the Lord, and the wall around Jerusalem. The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of the Lord. Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places."Near the beginning of Solomon's reign as king, we can see the subtle ways he's being pulled off God's path. There's two key ways given in this passage.
First, Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh king of Egypt. The Egyptians were not followers of Yahweh. She would have had her own god and religious practices she brought with her into this marriage.
Second, Solomon continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense at the high places. The high places were where the gods of the peoples surrounding Israel would have been worshiped and their practices were detestable to Yahweh. But, Solomon was still participating in it.
Yes, it was good that Solomon was walking in God's ways in the rest of his life. And we see the benefits of that in the rest of 1 Kings 3. The long-term effects of these two things couldn't yet be seen. But, if we take a quick glance ahead at the end of Solomon's life, we see how his wives who each had their own gods and religious practices led him astray and he was far from God's ways. The pattern intensified as Solomon's life went on, but if began subtly, here at the beginning of his reign.
Much of Solomon's life as recorded in 1 Kings 3 was about living God's way. Looking at his life, it would have been easy to see the things he was doing that pleased Yahweh. And that would make it easier to justify that these other two things didn't really matter - that they were insignificant.
And that's exactly what we do. It's often easy to justify a couple of little things, especially if the rest of life is being done God's way. But, there's a huge danger lurking here. We might only be one step off God's path right now, but if we continue to go int hat direction, it won't take long for us to be much further off.
And we don't often realize how far off we've gotten until it's a long way back to God's path. By the time we realize it, we're distant and have lost the intimacy with God we once had.
Are there places in your life where you need to get back on God' path before you've ended up a lot further away then you ever intended to get?
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