Today’s Scripture Reading (September 24, 2016): 2 Chronicles 9
The purpose of our lives often seems to elude us. President John F. Kennedy once remarked that “effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” Many philosophers (Ayn Rand, the Dalai Lama and Karl Marx to mention a few) have seemed to indicate that our only purpose is to be happy. But being happy is often hard without a purpose that extends out from our own soul – a direction that we have a drive inside of us to take. To do good, to worship God and to help those around us are all exemplary purposes for our lives. But there are other purposes that need to extend from these. The desire to accomplish, to leave something of ourselves that will make this world a better place, often seems to be a driving force that lives deep inside of us. We do not do these things for money. We do them because it is within us to do them. And if we are going to be happy, what is within us must not be stopped.
There is no doubt that King Solomon was both wise and wealthy. But this passage might outline one of the primary deficits of Solomon’s reign. He may have been wise, but his reign seemed to lack purpose. He had five hundred shields of varying sizes created out of gold. But they were useless in battle. Gold is too heavy and too soft to make a useful tool of war. And the shields were too valuable to be lost in combat. It has been estimated that the larger shields were worth well in excess of $150,000 each, while the smaller shields were worth more than $50,000. But no matter how much money they might have cost, they were useless. It seems that Solomon might have had an image of himself as a warrior king, but he lacked the substance to make himself one. Solomon appears to dream of being his father, but he lacked his father’s military knowledge. Solomon’s wisdom existed in other areas. And the illustration of this is clearly seen in his creation of these five hundred useless shields.
The shields were hung in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. To be honest, I cannot imagine a more perfect place to hang these shields. The Palace of the Forest of Lebanon was one of the major building projects of Solomon, alongside the temple and his own personal palace. It was huge. It was about the height of a four-story building, and the length of a fifteen story building laid on its side. The pillars that held up the building were actual cedar pillars from Lebanon. According to some traditions, the inside of the building looked and smelled like cedar forest. It was expensive to build, but it had no stated purpose. Expensive useless shields were being stored in an expensive useless building. This was the epitaph to the life of Solomon. He was one of the wisest men to have ever lived, and yet his lack of purpose doomed the nation of Israel. Without purpose and direction, wisdom was simply not enough.
Lack of purpose often wrecks the positive that exists in all of us. And it is something that needs to be avoided. What is the purpose toward which you are devoting your life?
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 11
No comments:
Post a Comment