Joshua 19-21 | Luke 2:25-52

“Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 5:10

Are we content with what we have or is there still a yearning for more? As we travel through the Old Testament, we find the people of God struggling to live into God’s plans for them. The crescendo of this is someone who led them into the greatest economic prosperity that Israel ever enjoyed but revealed that this idea of enough seemed elusive and always moving.

Solomon was one of Israel’s greatest kings and certainly the wisest one in the Old Testament. But he struggled with the whole idea of enough, which started to show up right at the beginning of his reign. 1 Kings 6 records in the fourth year of his reign that Solomon began to build the Temple of God; it was his first order of business once things were stabilized. We are told, “The Temple that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high” (1 Kings 6:2). In total, it took Solomon seven years to build the Temple. Now, this was commendable. The first thing that he did was establish the Temple, the place of encounter, where God can have a relationship with His people. It was a good start for Solomon.

At the same time, the author of 1 Kings starts dropping us some clues about other forces at work in Solomon’s life. 1 Kings 7:1 tells us, “It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace.” In comparison to the Temple of God, Solomon spent almost twice as much focusing on his own needs, his own comfort and his own desires.

We may justify that Solomon’s house needed to be bigger because he had a lot going on as a king; plus, he needed a home for seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, along with his many children as well as servants that served them all. It could be possible that all of this may have been an honest oversight on his end? But did we notice what we just did there? We tried to rationalize Solomon’s actions without realizing Solomon’s actions revealed where his heart was.

Similarly, when we focus our own perspective on what we need and we push things to the side, we go down the river of rationalizing our needs. Then, we go on accumulating more and more without realizing what it is doing to our heart of worship.

Returning to our opening question: are we content with what we have or is there still a yearning for more? May we consider how we spend our time and energy, is it building our own kingdom or God’s kingdom?

PRAYER

Dear God, thank You for what You have blessed me with. Help me to use what You have given me to build Your kingdom. Praise You!