I Kings 9:1-10:13
Dear RTB’ers,
An early sentence in today’s reading caught my eye: And the LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before Me…” (v. 9:3a) The Lord heard Solomon’s prayer (from yesterday’s reading). Solomon was no more human and no more loved by God than any one of us. The Lord acknowledged Solomon’s prayer (in person), and I have no doubt but that God hears every prayer from every one of us, and that He acts on our prayers according to His will. If His answer to any of our prayers is “no” or “not yet”, He has His reasons – and He is God and we are not. I suspect that His answer to many of our prayers is actually “Yes, but…”. And that’s good by me!
Sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, page after page, more and more of Solomon’s wealth and power! I chuckled that Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in Galilee, but that Hiram was displeased with those cities (I Kings 9:11-13). But Galilee is the region where Jesus grew up and where (presumably) He spent most of His ministry time. So He clearly redeemed Galilee from Hiram’s disfavor!!
Blessings.
See also: