February 28

In I Chronicles 28:9, King David speaks candidly to his son Solomon who will assume his throne upon his death. He speaks from the heart of a wise monarch who has unified his nation and who has vanquished all her enemies. But more importantly, he speaks from the depth of a loving father’s heart.

In His words, we hear the love of our Heavenly Father and we, like Solomon, will be the better if we heed them. David says, “…know the God of your father and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches hearts and understands the imagination of all thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found of you, but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.”

These words are at once a tender yet sobering reminder of the power we have over our own destiny. They affirm the desire of the Holy One to discover Himself to us as the fullness of all we need and in the entirety of all we long to have and yearn to be. Yet, as in any covenant, in any contractual relationship, there are stipulations and provisions that must be met if the agreement is to remain in effect.

Would Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, have allowed himself to be turned aside from his enormous potential by the “foreign women” who captured his imagination and caused him to abandon his high calling if he had know the disaster he unleashed upon himself in so doing? Should we not learn from his mistakes and avert similar failure to our potential through our indulgence of any distraction that might cause our being cast off as Solomon was!