wholeheartedness

December 2, 2010

4As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. ... 6So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. (1 Kings 11:4,6)

I read this the other day. I feel like I've read this passage so many times, and I "knew" that Solomon fell away from God at the end of his life, but reading it this time around, the verses caught my eye for a bit longer. According to the verses, Solomon was not fully devoted to God; he did not follow God completely. Those key words really stuck out to me. It wasn't that Solomon didn't believe in God, or didn't worship him, or pray to him; it was that he was not wholehearted in his devotion to God.

Solomon was the guy who built the temple for God, who was filled with more wisdom from God than any other person in the history of all mankind, the son of David, a man after God's own heart, and the great king that people from all over came to listen to because God had blessed with him with so much. If he could become led astray by his wives, and become not fully devoted to God, how more likely could the rest of us if we are not careful to walk in God's commandments, meditate on His word day and night, and commune daily with him?

The words 'fully' and 'completely' keep jumping out at me. We are called to be fully devoted to God; that means that every area of our lives is to serve and glorify God and not some other idol. While Solomon was very obviously bowing down to false gods, we sometimes bow down to gods less obvious: our ambitions, our pride, our desires, that girl/boy, our lusts, our will, wealth, fame, etc.. We may even be worshiping concepts that in and of itself are good and not harmful, but we turn them into idols, like marriage, family, holiness, etc. When our end result is no longer purely glorification of God and it leads us to be consumed with itself, it becomes idolatry. We might be praying and reading the Bible daily, but there may be some area in our lives where God is not LORD over but we are. Sometimes, it's hard to notice it, because we look to the things we do and think that we're on good terms, when we may very well be committing idolatry in a certain area of our lives and be blind to it. It's crucial to remember that following God requires wholeheartedness and complete devotion.

Devoting everything to God BUT some tiny little area in our lives, maybe in the area of our future, is not wholehearted devotion and is not something we should be content with because God wants our all. This reminds me of a metaphor on surrendering I heard from Jaeson Ma back when I was a sophomore in high school. He said to imagine someone said they were going to give you really great tasting juice (your favorite kind), but it's 98% authentic juice, and 2% someone's pee. We wouldn't want that right? In the same way, God wants our all, not just our 98%. I believe this can be applied to wholeheartedness as well. No one likes being helped, loved, or listened to halfheartedly. We'd always like to (and understandably so) be helped, loved, etc. by people wholeheartedly and fully. So why would we treat God any different?

Sometimes, I get quite fearful that I am following my own desires in certain areas of my life. It gets hard for me sometimes to distinguish between what is God's will and what is my will. I pray that in all things God will continue to reveal to me the areas where I have to let go and give him the reins, that as we all continue to pray and seek after Him, He'll guide us to where our entire lives are consumed with Him and the indwelling of His presence and Spirit in our lives, so that we may live Spirit-filled and Spirit-led lives that would serve to be a powerful testimony to how real and great our God is.

May we all increasingly seek and pursue God alone, and resolve that our lives may be one wholehearted and complete devotion to God himself in everything. That our hearts may be faithful and loyal to the One who loves us more than we could ever imagine or comprehend. May we be careful of thinking that we have already accomplished this. I hope that we would be content with what we have received from God, but never content with where our lives and relationship with God is at, that we'd strive increasingly to live such a life that is so fully devoted to God that we'd produce a yearning for God in others.