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 10:23: “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift – articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.”
Have you ever just wanted to talk to someone wise? It seems like the people of Solomon’s day did – enough to make long journeys, bringing caravans of gifts. They prized wisdom. Is there an example who we can be challenged by today?
Often in the course of life, we come to points where we simply need wisdom from above. When facing big decisions, we can try to list the pros and cons of taking this course or that one, looking at the situation from all possible angles. When we have difficulties in our relationships with others, we wonder what it is that we did wrong: do we need to change or does the other person; do we need to keep giving it a chance or make the hard choice to keep our distance. But as much as we try to think through problems to figure out the best solution, at the end of the day, we still find ourselves not really knowing what to do.
As believers, our great advantage is that we can take these matters to God in prayer, listen for his “voice,” read His word, and seek His wisdom. And one of the ways God grants us His wisdom is through the community of believers, by giving us wise people among us, by even granting some in the body of Christ the spiritual gift of the word of wisdom (1 Cor 12:8) for the common good. Sometimes we can err on the side of seeking people’s help first before seeking God because it is easier to talk to someone than to wrestle with God in prayer. But sometimes, we need to reach out to someone older and wiser, to seek a mentor, to seek building relationships with people who can speak into our lives, who can share God’s wisdom with us. Sometimes, building those relationships costs us – time, energy, effort. Taking a long drive to meet up with someone. Making time on a precious weekend when we could be out with friends, watching T.V., or simply just sleeping in. Are we willing?
In the community of Christ, we have people available to us who are willing to share God’s wisdom with us, whether through a message given during a Sunday service, in the counseling office, or over a casual meal. We don’t have to figure out all life’s problems on our own. For this, let’s be thankful today and take a lesson from these people of long ago, to be willing to go to some lengths to seek wisdom where it may be found.
Bible Reading for Today: Revelation 15
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.
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!