What Do You Want?

That night the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!”   1 Kings 3:5

After Solomon was made King by David, and he sacrificed and worshiped the Lord, that night Solomon had a dream. God said Solomon, what do you want? Whatever you ask I will give you. I love Solomon’s answer, that comes in two parts. The first part he recounts how faithful God has been to His servant David. What an example David set for Solomon, although his father was King, in relation to God he saw him as a servant. This was because David saw himself as God’s servant and although he failed God terribly at times, he had a heart that was willing to admit his wrongs and not only acknowledged them, but repented and changed his thinking. For this God called David a man after His own heart. Perhaps that’s why Solomon went on to say that David was faithful, honest and true to the God.

Then Solomon said, that God is still faithful to his father, so much so that He gave him a son to continue this legacy of walking in a relationship with Almighty God. Solomon heard his fathers Psalms as they focused on the relationship that made him a beloved king and leader. He heard the stories of how in a cave surrounded by a 3-D army (those who were in debt, discouraged and discontented) and turned them into his Mighty Men that became me of valor for the King and Israel. Solomon saw what God could do with someone who loved and followed Him. He may have been a young man, but from what he learned, he knew he needed a relationship with God too, because it was God that directed David to make him King.

Solomon then made a request that God was more than willing to fulfill, he asked Him for an understanding (listening, discerning) heart, so that he could govern and know the difference between right and wrong and good and evil. Of all the things he could have asked for, he asked for something most people would think as irrelevant. But he knew that without God he and his kingdom would not be blessed. A lesson we all need to learn and brings a whole new meaning to Jesus statement, “apart from me you can do nothing.” How about you, have you seen and learned what Solomon did?