Editor’s Note: The AMI QT devotionals from June 20 to 26 are provided by Kate Moon who serves in E. Asia.
Devotional Thoughts for Today
1 Kings 10:8-9: “How happy your men must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! Praise be to the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the LORD’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness.”
Because I’m happy (Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof)
Because I’m happy (Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth)
Because I’m happy (Clap along if you know what happiness is to you)
Because I’m happy (Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do)
– lyrics from “Happy” by Pharrell Williams
I love the sequence in Despicable Me 2, perfectly set to this song, when Gru is dancing down the streets because he’s on cloud nine. His impromptu date with Lucy the night before ended with a kiss on the cheek, and he is happy. A few scenes later, however, we see the sequence played comically in reverse because circumstances have changed, and it becomes a classic example of the distinction we sometimes make as Christians between “happiness” and “joy.” We associate happiness with the emotional high so exuberantly depicted here but which is dependent on circumstances, and we say that joy is better because it does not.
Yet J.P. Moreland in his book, The Lost Virtue of Happiness, tells us that the concept of happiness was not always perceived in this way. He writes, “Here we must examine the classical understanding of happiness proclaimed by Moses, Solomon, Jesus, Aristotle, Plato, the church fathers and medieval theologians, and many more—the understanding that has recently been replaced by ‘pleasurable satisfaction.’ According to the ancients, happiness is a life well lived, a life of virtue and character, a life that manifests wisdom, kindness, and goodness.”
This is the kind of happiness that in today’s passage the Queen of Sheba is attributing to the people who are under the rule of a good and wise king. Though she has just seen the vast wealth and splendor of Solomon, she interestingly connects his people’s happiness, not to these but instead to how God has given them a just and righteous leader, someone they can trust to maintain these values in their society.
What truly makes us happy? And how do we strive to bring happiness to others? For some parents, it may be in providing materially for their families, which is most honorable. But do we also seek to foster a family environment where wisdom, kindness and goodness reign? For some leaders, it may be by trying to engage people in exciting projects, taking them from one success to another. But is our character such that people feel safe under our guidance? Knowing that they can trust us to make the right decisions? Let us do the latter without neglecting the former; it is how we may best be able to bring happiness to the people under our care.
Bible Reading for Today: Revelation 13-14
With the arrival of summer come thoughts of slowing down, taking a break, having the leisure to do things we feel we usually don’t have time to do. We start thinking about taking a trip to get away from the normal routine or perhaps picking up a hobby we’ve been meaning to try.
Have you ever had the experience of having to reject someone you loved? A friend of mine was once in a relationship with someone she loved very much. They were together for several years and planning to get married when he became mentally ill. It was a kind of paranoia where he was fine with most people but only became extremely suspicious of those who were closest to him, which meant it affected my friend the most. He began to think that she was a spy working for North Korea; things got worse from there, and in the end, she very painfully had to break off her relationship with him, though she still cared for him very much.
I used to think that the academic calendar did not matter to most people once they started working full-time because they no longer had the long summer breaks; and the beginning and ending of each year probably went from September through June to something closer to the actual calendar year. But then I realized that when people get married and start having children, they are back on that same timetable all over again.
The occasion is the celebration of the completion of the temple. The king offers a prayer of dedication, asking God to hear the prayers to be offered in this place. What would the contents of these prayers be? Most of us would assume them to be for some kind of help or blessing, in which case the king’s prayer should have gone something like: “Hear from heaven . . . and when you hear, deliver us,” or, “and when you hear, bless our land.” But King Solomon’s prayer, “and when you hear, forgive,” assumes that the prayers offered at or toward this temple would be pleas for forgiveness. Though he does go on to pray for deliverance and blessing, he does so asking God for his mercies in the context of his people turning back to Him (vv. 34-40). On an occasion meant for joyful celebration, why does he choose to focus on forgiveness, bringing up the inevitability of the people sinning against God (v. 46)?
Read Exodus 32:19, 34:1: “When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain . . . . The LORD said to Moses, ‘Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.’” 
Look at all that gold—the gold altar, golden table, gold lampstands, etc. So much gold was used in the furnishings for the building. Right now, gold trades for about $1200 per ounce, and certainly these furnishings were many, many ounces; so in all likelihood, the furnishings alone were worth perhaps up to a billion dollars in today’s currency. Yet, this was not gold being used for buying and trading, or for strengthening the Kingdom of Israel; it was used purely for the purpose of worship.
This story seems to show a lack of spiritual concentration and endurance on the part of Solomon. How true is this in my life! I have spiritual highs, from activities like retreats or mission trips, but then as time goes on, these highs wear off and I fall back into normal, self-centered living. I have made convictions but continue to be someone whose action centers on feeling and circumstance, rather than firm, unwavering beliefs and commitments. We often characterize our spiritual life as sine waves, going up and down, but is that how God wants us to live, tossed by circumstance or feeling?
Finally, Solomon had finished building the Temple, the house for God. It took many years, many resources, and much labor, but it was finally finished. So what does Solomon do? He immediately turns to building his own house, which he works on for thirteen years. Did you catch that contrast? The passage says, “He was seven years in building it. Solomon was building his own house thirteen years.” He spent almost twice as long building his own house!
When I read this passage while writing this devotional, I thought about skipping it. I thought to myself, this does not really show grace. This passage seems to imply that we need to obey God before He comes to us, that we need to earn His presence. But as I reflected on this, I realized, that is certainly not the case.