Hiram king of Tyre replied by letter to Solomon: “Because the LORD loves his people, he has made you their king.” – 2 Chronicles 2:11

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 2, 2013): 2 Chronicles 2

People tell us what they think we want to hear. It is the real problem with much of what we learn after we leave school. I have friends that have admitted that they borrowed money on their credit cards so that they would not have to go into debt without realizing that they were possibly going into the worst kind of debt imaginable. Furniture companies have been advertising their “buy now, pay later” philosophy for decades. And it is music to our ears because that is exactly what we want. I want to have the thing now and be able to pay for it later. I mean, who wants to have to save up to buy stuff. But the reality is that the people giving us the stuff are laughing all the way to the bank. The giving away of money and things on credit has become a multi-billion dollar industry in our society. And what we don’t seem to realize is that they are getting richer while we get poorer. What we want to hear is far from being what we need to hear.

Solomon is starting the process of building the temple. And so he sends a letter off to the Huram the king of Tyre asking for craftsman and materials. Huram answer was exactly what Solomon wanted to hear – Because your God loves his people, he has made you king over them. We might even begin to believe that Huram had a relationship with the same God as Solomon. The words are almost phrased as “God and I were speaking last night and he told me that he made you king because he loved your people.” The comment supported Solomon’s ego.

But the reality was that Huram was just trying to tell Solomon exactly what he wanted to hear to cement the relationship between Israel and Tyre. What was really happening was that Solomon was giving Huram a chance to be the nation that Israel would find themselves indebted to – and that was too good a possibility for Huram to pass up. In the end, Huram would become rich because Solomon was king.

One of the life lessons that we need to learn is that there is a huge difference between what we need and what we want. And it sometimes just empty words that push us from one to another. But if we allow people to only say what we want to hear – and we make decisions on those words – we are the ones who will pay in the end. And in doing so we will give to those doing the talking exactly what they want – all of what we have to give.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 3