Reading First Kings

This book is once again another story of the tragedy of perhaps the most convoluted family in history. The book goes from good to bad over and over again. The cycle is almost enough to make your head spin like a record. One minute the people are loving God, and obeying Him with all of their heart, and the next, they are loving idols, and disobeying God, turning their backs on Him.

The book's central character is Solomon. His story is hilarious, and yet extremely saddening. It shows that God has a keen sense of ironic humour.

Solomon was David's youngest son, yet once again defying the traditional laws (much like David's anointment as king), Solomon is crowned the next king of Israel. His reign begins on a high note, with God continuing the same relationship that he originally had with David. He grants Solomon one thing, and Solomon being a smart, mature, leadership qualified man, chooses wisdom, in order to help govern his people in the best way possible.

But with all the wisdom in the world, after continually making amazing choices in regards to ruling over his people, Solomon messes up grandly in two ways. First, he gets distracted, and secondly, he falls away from God.

Solomon gets distracted by things of the world. Initially he starts off by committing his wisdom to use for God. He makes decisions that are meant to further God's kingdom, and dedicates himself to building a temple. But soon, Solomon attempts to build himself a kingdom. He starts by accumulating wealth and riches past that which was required for the temple. He also stockpiles women and wives, ending up with 700 wives. All of this distracted him for his real mission, and led him astray.

All of these distractions add up to Solomon falling away from God. In almost a mind-blowing fashion, Solomon loses his commitment to God. While the Bible does not explicitly state that Solomon loses his faith, there are references to his disobedience in later years. The story of Solomon ends rather abruptly turning to his descendants. The Bible does make mention of the fact that Solomon never fully turned away from God, but he also never fully committed himself to God.

This can remind us of the warning in Revelations 3:14-22, regarding being lukewarm. According to this passage, God spits out those who are lukewarm. He wants us to be fully committed, raring to go.

So with all the wisdom anyone could ever imagine, Solomon still made the wrong decision and chose the world over God. His legacy took a major hit because of that. This should serve as a warning sign for us. Rather then seek out wisdom, we should be seeking out God. Many fall under the false impression that wisdom will grant all the answers; only God could ever do that. Even with all the answers in the world, we will still mess up unless we act as servants for God, as partners with Him.

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Reading Second Samuel

Second Samuel is another interesting picture of perhaps the second most heralded character in Israel's history; King David. There are really three contrasting portraits painted of the man throughout the book, and throughout the rest of Deuteronomistic History.

First, David as the young, courageous shepherd. This part of the story painted David in an extremely positive light. He was labelled as the obedient son, doing the dirty work for his father and his brothers multiple times. He was the one left to watch the sheep while his brothers participated in a special meal. He was the one who was left to watch his father (and the sheep again) while his brothers gained respect by fighting in the king's army. Yet, you never read about any complaints from David. In fact, he keeps mainly to himself, supposedly writing psalms after psalms during his time as a shepherd. When he does get a chance to be thrust into the light, he immediately takes it, eager to prove himself, not to his brothers who get mad at him, or even the king who watches him closely, but rather to the one thing that he finds hope in; God.

Even in David's teenage years, he remains quiet, yet extremely confident and courageous. He is thrust under the wings of an extreme insane king, Saul, and his life is threatened multiple times. He doesn't run and hide, but rather chooses to remain, and wait for God's command.

Second, David is the masterful, self-confident strong leader, making himself a famous king never to be forgotten. The people adore him, idolize him, and even worship him. His enemies were continually frightened by him, scared to even think about standing up against him. In a way, David was the greatest human king Israel would ever have. In fact, he can even be considered one of the greatest leaders ever to grace this planet, as a political and military conqueror.

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Yet, through all of that good, there still remained an evil in David. David was initially very controlled with his war actions. He showed amazing restraint in his campaign in defence from Saul. Yet, at some point, he lost that restraint and turned into a ruthless man, showing no conscience over ordering an innocent man's death. He also lost all morals and consideration for God, and turned to multiple worldly sins to satisfy his own craving for power. He turned to adultery, to worldly fortune, to anything but God. And ultimately, that led to David's downfall.

Rick Warren's A Life of Purpose Review

Rating: 9.2/10
Website: http://rickwarren.org

This is perhaps my favourite sermon. It has impacted my life the most thus far. I'm the person who likes to plan huge lofty goals, and hopes to one day to make it far in multiple industries. This sermon gives me a slight reality check, provides me with hope, and reminds me exactly what my life is all about.

The talk is a Ted Talk labelled as A Life of Purpose. Essentially, Warren is talking about the success of his book, A Purpose Driven Life. Surprisingly, this book, although very Christian in nature, averaged up to a million copies sold each month in 2006. Warren states that he thinks the reason for this is spiritual emptiness. Spiritual emptiness brings a life with no purpose. The issue of no purpose is not a religious problem, but a human problem.

A major part of this speech is Warren's testimony about his trials as a successful author. Warren states that he struggled to find the purpose behind the success of his book. Two things happened as a result of the book to Warren; a huge amount of money flooded into his household, and he garnered international attention. Now according to his worldview, which is what he describes is what he is betting his life on (that Jesus is who He claimed to be), this attention and money had to be put to a certain use.

So Rick Warren made decisions regarding the money, such as not using it for himself, giving it back to the church, and finally setting up charitable organizations. Warren concludes that the testament of a good life is not about feeling good, but rather being good, and doing good things.

Finally, Warren also had to deal with the attention, which he said was even more difficult then dealing with the money. Attention has everything to deal with influence Warren argues. The purpose of that influence is to speak for those who have no influence.

Perhaps the highlight of this speech, is Rick Warren's interpretation of the story of Moses, especially concerning the episode with the burning bush. Through this burning bush, God is talking to Moses. One of the questions God asks is, "What's in your hand?" As Warren explains, this may be the most important question you are ever asked. Moses replies a shepherd staff. God tells him to throw it down, and it turns into a snake. God then commands Moses to pick that snake up, and it returns to its original form as a staff. Key to this story is the shepherd staff in Moses' hand. It represented his identity as a shepherd, it was a symbol of his income, and finally it was a symbol of his influence. God asked him to lay that all down at His feet, and He made it come alive.

So what's in your hand? What has God given you to use? What can you do to make the world a better place? What is your life wired to be like?

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