Change

Reflection:

If there is one constant in this world, it’s change. Everything is always changing around us, even if it is a gradual process. We see change in nations, on the streets of our city, in our gardens, with our kids, in our churches, and even in our physical and spiritual lives. Sometimes the change that hits me most is that I’m the same age as all those old people I see walking around Costco. How did that happen?

Change that happens in the hidden or unseen areas can also be super significant. I heard a pastor once say, “You are either growing deeper in love with Jesus or you are sliding into a pattern of selfishness.” OK, I didn’t truly hear a pastor say it…I just said it to myself. Yet, I think that it is true. My walk with Jesus is always changing. Am I either growing softer and more in love with Jesus or am I loving the world and its ways? The Apostle John said in 1 John 2:15 “Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.”

This was highlighted to me as I read the life story of King Solomon. He started life so well. He had so much going for him. King David chose him above everyone else to be the next King of Israel, God chose him to build the temple and he was given so much wisdom and knowledge. He was an instant success and the entire world raved over his great wisdom. But when you read about the end of his life, he completely lost his way, fell away from a sincere walk with the Lord, and apparently lost much of that wisdom and knowledge that he was known for. At the end of his life, he didn’t know that his heart had changed and grown cold toward God. The sad epitaph of Solomon’s life was that he did what was evil in the LORD’s sight; he refused to follow the LORD completely. 

Could it have been that when Jesus told the story of the sower and the seed that fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil and sprang up quickly but because the soil was shallow and the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root, he was thinking of someone like Solomon? 

We have a choice. To continue to change and become like Jesus, or to grow selfish and become like the world. May the change that happens in our hearts only draw us closer to Jesus, to our families, and toward the call on our lives as followers of Jesus. Don’t let your change be a slow drift from a passionate life with Jesus and his word. Keep in fellowship and keep a keen awareness of your heart. May it be said at the end of our lives that we changed and became more like Jesus each and every day!

I’ll leave you with the passages of scripture that I read this week about King Solomon. 

Scripture:

I Kings 4:29-34

God gave Solomon very great wisdom and understanding, and knowledge as vast as the sands of the seashore. In fact, his wisdom exceeded that of all the wise men of the East and the wise men of Egypt… His fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations. He composed some 3,000 proverbs and wrote 1,005 songs. He could speak with authority about all kinds of plants, from the great cedar of Lebanon to the tiny hyssop that grows from cracks in a wall. He could also speak about animals, birds, small creatures, and fish. And kings from every nation sent their ambassadors to listen to the wisdom of Solomon.

1 Kings 11:2-6

The LORD had clearly instructed the people of Israel, “You must not marry them, (wives from foreign lands) because they will turn your hearts to their gods.” Yet Solomon insisted on loving them anyway. He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines. And in fact, they did turn his heart away from the LORD.

In Solomon’s old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the LORD his God, as his father, David, had been. Solomon worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites. In this way, Solomon did what was evil in the LORD’s sight; he refused to follow the LORD completely, as his father, David, had done.

David