Asking for Trouble: Praying the Hard Prayers

Are you ready for a moment of transparency?  Although I still rise early each morning to study, I will not lie to you.  Sometimes that study lacks focus.  Early on, I was just on such a high, and I felt like God was speaking to me and dealing with me at every turn, but lately, I’ve just struggled to focus on ANYthing.  Oh, I’ve listened to some powerful messages that have fed my soul and stirred my heart, but—well—I guess struggle is the word that sums it best.  Ever heard of the #strugglebus?  I think I have an annual pass.

But I’m still getting up.  I’m still trying to get my brain under subjection.  Because I feel like, if I DO, then a breakthrough can happen, and if I DON’T—it will never get better.  I'm asking Him to bear with me, and not to give up on me.  So, I keep climbing on the bus, until God helps me find the entrance to the supersonic jet he’s leading me to.  (Yes, that’s wishful thinking—but hey!  God can do anything, so dream BIG!)

At any rate, a few mornings ago, my bible fell open to 1 Kings 4, and I’ve been going back to this story ever since.  Solomon has just begun his reign, and he has appointed his court.  Among those he’s chosen to be his chief advisors are legacies of faithfulness, the offspring of those who’d served his father, David, with honor and integrity.  He set up leaders and officers in every part of Israel, and made sure they were well provided for, and verse 21 says that “Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt….”  Not only that, but these neighbors were peaceful allies, who “served Solomon all the days of his life.”  That’s quite a testimony!  It must have really been something to live in Israel at that time.

Then there’s the documented wealth of Solomon, which we later learn from the queen of Sheba’s visit, could not adequately be described.  It exceeded anything anyone had ever seen.  They didn’t even use silver in Solomon’s house—too common.  It was gold, or it was nothing.  One of the things that’s really striking to me is that it doesn’t appear that Solomon was a stingy miser about it all, either.  His heart was generous, and he gave freely.  He was no Ebenezer Scrooge.  In return, he had absolute loyalty from his subjects.

Of course, the thing we hear most about is Solomon’s wisdom.  He may have been even more famous for his wisdom than his wealth, though it’s a toss-up.  I love this particular passage:

1 Kings 4:29-34 NLT

²⁹ God gave Solomon very great wisdom and understanding, and knowledge as vast as the sands of the seashore. ³⁰ In fact, his wisdom exceeded that of all the wise men of the East and the wise men of Egypt. ³¹ He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan the Ezrahite and the sons of Mahol—Heman, Calcol, and Darda. His fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations. ³² He composed some 3,000 proverbs and wrote 1,005 songs. ³³ He could speak with authority about all kinds of plants, from the great cedar of Lebanon to the tiny hyssop that grows from cracks in a wall. He could also speak about animals, birds, small creatures, and fish. ³⁴ And kings from every nation sent their ambassadors to listen to the wisdom of Solomon.

If you called Solomon a Know-it-All, you’d be right.  And he was the real deal. 

Instead of rubbing everyone the wrong way, though, it seems like God just kept pouring favor on Solomon.  Hiram, king of Tyre, who’d been David’s biggest foreign fan, transferred that fan-club membership right on over to Junior.  Solomon knew it, and he requested Hiram’s help in building the Temple that had long been in the heart of his father David to build.  Hiram immediately agreed.  Whatever Solomon needed, he was ready to supply.  That pretty much sums up chapter 5.

Then, in chapter 6, the work on the temple began.  It’s an amazing, detailed account.  Especially fascinating to me is that according to 1 Kings 6:7 KJV, everything—absolutely everything—for the temple was fabricated and fashioned off-site.  There was NO construction noise to speak of, at all!  It says that there was “neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was building.” Quietest. Construction site. EVER.

And then there’s all the finishing work—the carvings, the cedar, the details—and everything overlaid in gold.  Can you imagine?  There was even gold on the floor! (1 Kings 6:30)  In the outer court in chapter 7, we find columns of brass, foundations of costly stone, a massive laver for the priests to wash in that was 5 yards across and 15 yard in circumference, which rested on backs of twelve huge, carved oxen.  Honestly, the details are dizzying.

Finally, in chapter 8, the Temple is ready.  No expense has been spared, and seven years of meticulous, skillful work has led to this dedication day.  Solomon assembles the people, and they ready themselves to bring the Ark of the Covenant into its new, magnificent resting place.  And what happens after the priests exit the Holy of Holies?

The Glory cloud falls, and it fills the house of the Lord.  The cloud is so thick, the priests couldn’t even stand to minister, “for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.” (1 Kings 8:10 KJV)  That’s NOT like us huffing off, saying, “I can’t STAND this!”  That’s as in, the presence of God was SO THICK, they couldn’t even stand up under the weight of His Glory.  The New Living Translation says in verse 11:  “The priests could not continue their service because of the cloud, for the glorious presence of the Lord filled the Temple of the Lord.

Y’all…THAT is some GLORY.

And finally, beginning in verse 12, Solomon begins to speak, and to bless the congregation of Israel.  He reminds them that this all began in the heart of his father, David, and that God has been faithful to His promise to see David’s son on the throne.  And then, Solomon prays:

1 Kings 8:22-29 NLT

²² Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the entire community of Israel. He lifted his hands toward heaven, ²³ and he prayed,

“O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in all of heaven above or on the earth below. You keep your covenant and show unfailing love to all who walk before you in wholehearted devotion. ²⁴ You have kept your promise to your servant David, my father. You made that promise with your own mouth, and with your own hands you have fulfilled it today.

²⁵ “And now, O Lord, God of Israel, carry out the additional promise you made to your servant David, my father. For you said to him, ‘If your descendants guard their behavior and faithfully follow me as you have done, one of them will always sit on the throne of Israel.’ ²⁶ Now, O God of Israel, fulfill this promise to your servant David, my father.

²⁷ “But will God really live on earth? Why, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this Temple I have built! ²⁸ Nevertheless, listen to my prayer and my plea, O Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is making to you today. ²⁹ May you watch over this Temple night and day, this place where you have said, ‘My name will be there.’ May you always hear the prayers I make toward this place.”

Pretty powerful.  But to me, what really nailed me between the eyes, came a few verses later. 

Solomon prays a number of prayers to God, asking him to honor Israel when they are following after them with their whole hearts, but also conceding that He has every right to bring correction and judgment if they DON’T.  He even includes a prayer for outsiders—Gentiles—who, if they hear of His great Name, and His “strong hand,” and of His outstretched arm, and if they should come and pray towards His house, Solomon asks God to HEAR them!  He also asks God to “do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for: that all the people of the earth may know thy name”!  Do you SEE that?  He prayed for US!

But that wasn’t even the part that got my attention.  Solomon prays a prayer that absolutely bespeaks of something that lies a few centuries ahead for Israel—the Babylonian captivity.  You don’t think so?  Check this out:

1 Kings 8:46-51 NLT

⁴⁶ “If they sin against you—and who has never sinned?—you might become angry with them and let their enemies conquer them and take them captive to their land far away or near. ⁴⁷ But in that land of exile, they might turn to you in repentance and pray, ‘We have sinned, done evil, and acted wickedly.’ ⁴⁸ If they turn to you with their whole heart and soul in the land of their enemies and pray toward the land you gave to their ancestors—toward this city you have chosen, and toward this Temple I have built to honor your name— ⁴⁹ then hear their prayers and their petition from heaven where you live, and uphold their cause.⁵⁰ Forgive your people who have sinned against you. Forgive all the offenses they have committed against you. Make their captors merciful to them, ⁵¹ for they are your people—your special possession—whom you brought out of the iron-smelting furnace of Egypt.”

Anyone ever hear of Daniel? Hananiah?  Mishael?  Azariah? (AKA/Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?) Nehmiah?  All of them turned to God with their whole hearts.  No one risks imprisonment and execution unless their whole heart is involved.  And Solomon prayed them there!

Along with many others, I’m sure, I’ve been unnerved by the direction some of our leaders seem to want to take our nation.  More and more, I feel like the godless are pushing their own agendas, not just of a right to exist, or be tolerated, but they’re looking for a place of acceptance, honor, and dominance.  It’s not enough for them to be allowed space to be; it’s all about forcing everyone else to be like them.  And if you don’t think or act or believe like them, then buddy, they are going to take you out.  By any means necessary.  They don’t care if it’s truthful or not.  You are going down, and they’ll sic the hounds of Hell on you at any given moment.  Collateral damage?  Completely justified, in their eyes.  The means, any means, to them, justify the ends.  And they believe their grandiose hallucinations that their halos of righteousness are firmly intact.

My husband has remarked that he firmly believes that there may be some kind of rebellion, some kind of uprising or insurrection at some point, and it’s borne out by history.  It seems like, after prolonged periods of peace and prosperity, the most recent generations (who made no sacrifice at all regarding said peace) seem to come to believe that they are entitled to these benefits as some sort of spoiled rich-kid inheritance.  They easily discount the things that generations before have had to endure, and rewrite historical accounts to make it all seem as if their predecessors had done something wrong, or idiotic and childish, to bring on such conflict.  They believe they’re somehow better, somehow wiser, somehow superior, and far, far too smart to ever allow such a thing to happen ever again.  They know better.  They’re so much more “sophisticated” than the rustics who came before them.  But they end up bringing on the things they fear the most.

The problem is: those who survive the hard times, who live through the wars, who face true adversity—THEY are the people who know the real value of peace.  And though it sounds counterintuitive and contradictory, real peace is worth fighting for.  Like my husband, I wonder if some of the simplistic, materialistic, narcissistic people of our age might not benefit from a little adversity?  They didn’t call the WW2 era folks “The Greatest Generation” for nothing.  It’s ADVERSITY, not EASE, that takes ordinary people and motivates them to do extraordinary things.

Sadly, Solomon would become a victim to some of his own prayers.  The wisest man who ever lived failed to heed his own advice and to run from influences that would turn his heart from God.  But his prayers and his early wisdom live on—and they are a lesson and example to us.  He knew that sometimes, we NEED adversity in order to bring about a course correction in our lives.  Let us take our lives and make them beautiful, consecrated edifices that bring the Glory of God down in a cloud so thick, we can’t even stand for the presence of the King.  Let us purpose in our heart to be a dwelling place for His Name, a vessel that desires to carry His wisdom, and that we’d always turn towards Him to pray.  Let’s learn from the mistakes of our past, from the folly of our own arrogance, and faithfully follow Him and walk before Him in wholehearted devotion.

I promise, in this case—the ends really do justify the means!

Have your ever seen the fruit of adversity change your life for the better?  Leave me a comment and share your story!