“For they have forsaken Me and have bowed down to Astarte, goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh, god of Moab, and Milcom, god of the Ammonites. They have not walked in My ways or done what is right in My eyes, according to my statutes and my ordinances, as David his father did.”
1 Kings 11:33 (NAB)
I’ve been reading the old testament book of Kings, and found that by using my imagination, reading can become like watching a movie. The movie would be a drama about the power struggles of kings, their families, and their individual rises and falls, but most of all, it’s about each man’s relationship or falling out of their relationship with God.
King Solomon, the son of David, followed the faith of his father, for “most of his life.” God spoke to Solomon twice when he was a young man. Once, it was to offer him a blessing, for whatever he would ask for, and Solomon chose wisdom. God was like a proud father to Solomon, and so pleased with him choosing wisdom, that he gave him everything else as well. Solomon had it all, world renown fame, wealth, children and forty years of a peaceful reign over a unified nation.
I have always loved Solomon for his wisdom and all that he wrote, but scripture says that in his old age, his heart changed toward the Lord, being influenced by his thousand wives and the pagan culture they brought to the palace, in worshipping and serving foreign gods and goddesses. By the end of Solomon’s reign, he had lost all interest in serving the God of his father, David.
Today’s scripture reveals God’s response. The Lord felt very spurned and rejected by Solomon, and his death resulted in a divided kingdom. The tribes of Israel were torn apart, as ten tribes lived under one king and two tribes lived under another king, and they all waged war with each other for decades. God sent prophets to them to try and bring them back to God as one united nation of faith, but the kings had the prophets seized, silenced and often killed.
All this turmoil was the fruit of a nation turning away from God, sparked by Solomon rejecting God in his old age. The land was governed by men’s egos instead of God’s wisdom, which led to bad decisions, wars and injustice. The people also persisted in rejecting the God of their ancestors, as well the advice of the prophets sent to them. This sad and downward trend was still not the end of the story, because God’s mercy and His promises are forever.
In reading all this I couldn’t help feeling the deep grief that God felt, being rejected by Solomon, who was the son of His pride and joy. While I was visualizing all of this, I could see Solomon through God’s eyes and felt God’s heart of a father in losing Solomon’s devotion.
As I read some portions of scripture in this story out loud, listening to every word as I read it, I could feel empathy with God’s parental heart, and it brought tears to my eyes.
It suddenly occurred to me that God permits us to go through emotionally painful situations, so that we can know how He feels about us. Jon is my adult son, who rejected God in his life, and was heading down a wrong path prior to his motorcycle accident. Long before the accident, he made matters worse, by estranging himself from his entire family, including his twin brother who he used to speak with daily. None of us knew why he changed in such a way, but through that heartache, I came to understand how God’s heart grieves over His sons and daughters who turn away from Him.
No one denies that there is turmoil, division and strife in the world, and a need for peace, love and more of God in our lives. This story teaches those of us that anyone who has felt emotional pain, heartache, or rejection, before focusing on the cause, should pause and think about how God feels, being rejected by people He loves. Sometimes we need to take our pain to God and just ask, “Is it his how you felt, Lord?”
Maybe God permits emotional pain in our lives, in order to unite our hearts to His, so that we will better understand Him, and know that He fully understands us. It is then that we hear Jesus speak to our soul and say, “Come to me, I know how you feel, I am giving you my peace.”
Lord, help us to bring all of our heartache and emotional pain and unite it with you in love. We trust in your boundless mercy to restore every person’s faith in you. Amen
