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1 Kings 9:4-5 "And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, 'There shall not fail you a man upon the throne of Israel.'"

 

We all know that Solomon, unfortunately, did not continue to walk in integrity of heart and uprightness, and so the second part of God's promise to him is what came to pass ("But if you turn aside from following me, ... then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and the house which I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight" 1 Kings 9:6-7).

 

Our love story with God is so human. When we find Him, we have that first exciting, "all-in" rush of new love, and we want to do anything and everything for Him. Here, Solomon had just completed the Temple, a majestic gift of love to God given out of his overwhelming devotion to Him. That initial burst of love of God may last a long time, but it eventually settles down, as all our loves do, hopefully into a committed love that grows into a long-term, fruitful relationship.

 

In the version of his conversion story that I heard*, Father Donald Calloway described the end of this "young-love" stage as God pulling the lollipop out of our mouth, and asking us to stick with Him even as the sweetness fades. This is the hard part of love, but the part that gets the difficult work done. Solomon was not up for it, he allowed his many wives and their false gods to distract him. No doubt they offered some of that "new love" feeling back as it began to fade.

 

No lollipop lasts forever, in our spiritual life its sweetness is a hook, a very pleasing one meant to give us enough to keep going, not to get us addicted to sweetness. This is a fallen world, it requires slogging through a lot of bitterness, which we can do, even joyfully, with God's love, but only if we remember the real sweetness is to come, and stop looking for it down here. The devil is more than happy to serve up a whole host of things that offer that feeling back temporarily, but they cannot give lasting happiness, and when we fall for them, we end up cut off from the true, complete happiness that is our inheritance.

 

 

*Which I, of course, cannot find now, although here's one version of the story, which is awesome!