Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Priorities (out of whack!)

[From July 23, 2013]

"Solomon was building his own house 13 years, and he finished his entire house."
(1 Kings 7:1)

David had a dream.  His dream was to finally build God a house of his own.  No more "tent of meeting."  No more traveling tabernacle.  No more make-shift abode for the Creator of the Universe.  He felt bad that his house was much nicer than God's house.  But God didn't want David to build him a house.  So David passed all his plans on to his son, Solomon.

Solomon carried out his father's desires and built God a house (aka "The Temple in Jerusalem").  It took him 7 years.  In the Bible, seven is the number of perfection.  How appropriate.  1 Kings 6:38 says that it took 7 years to do just that.

But the very next verse is quite shocking to me.  1 Kings 7:1 says that Solomon then got to work on his house (I'm not sure why he couldn't live in the palace his father David lived in?!?)..  What shocked me was the fact it took Solomon 13 years to build his own house.  That's almost twice as long as the temple (was it twice as big?).  Sure, he had a thousand wives & concubines, so he'd need a lot of bedrooms (and bathrooms!)... but still, those priorities seem a bit out of whack to me. 

Never should we spend twice as much time on OUR endeavors as we do on God's endeavors.  Maybe that's one of the reasons the kingdom split after Solomon's reign!?!

No comments: