Humility
Solomon realizes the overwhelming task of leading God's people - especially in the face of the great respect David, his father, had received. Very correctly, he tells God that he is incapable of doing this on his own and he asks for wisdom and understanding. God is pleased with this approach.
Knowing the end of the story, I have two questions:
Was Solomon trying to "play" God - and just tell Him what He wanted to hear.
Or, did Solomon get cocky as things went well and lose sight of this humility.
I believe it was the latter. It was in a dream and I really believe that Solomon was expressing his heart to God in this dream. It may have been aspirational though. In other words, Solomon may have wanted to be this humble, but didn't really know how to. On the other hand, given the task at hand, I'm certain that he was overwhelmed and truly was calling out to God for wisdom and understanding.
But, knowing people like I know people, I know we get cocky when we don't fail. We think we're doing it all, but don't realize that it was really God holding up His end of the bargain. Pretty soon, God plays into our arrogance and let's go - that's when we crash and fail. That's what happened to Solomon.
Dear God, I understand my failings, my weaknesses, and my inability to survive on my own. Please help me to hang on tightly to you. Help me to not fail - not because I deserve it, but because without you I am already a failure.
Created over 1 year ago
