Solomon’s Prayer

In 1 King 8, we hear King Solomon’s beautiful prayer connected to the temple of the Lord. In that prayer Solomon pleads that if the people face some disaster and then turn to the temple, the dwelling of God, and pray, that God would hear that prayer and answer it. After a rather lengthy prayer, he gets up from his knees and stretched out his hands towards heaven and blessed the people. His prayer is, “Praise be to the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses.” Solomon turns their hearts toward God in praise for all His faithfulness, declaring that not one promise has failed that He gave through Moses. There have been many years and trials, but God remains faithful. Then we have a little bit of an odd statement, “May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us.” Not the part about the Lord being with them, but the statement “may God never leave or forsake us”. The problem wasn’t that God left them, but that they left God through their disobedience and sin. As a matter of fact, we see in Psalm 23 that God’s goodness and mercy will follow (not give up on us) all the days of our lives. God turned His face from His people, but He didn’t forsake them. I think Solomon knew that for we hear his prayer continue, “May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers.” We can’t do it without the help of the Holy Spirit. Solomon is seeking God to turn or hearts and lead us according to His way and by His commands. This is no different today. If we hunger to have that intimate walk with God, it is because of the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We can choose to respond differently, but without the Holy Spirit, that is just an outward action. Our prayer should always be that God would change our heart to seek and honor Him. Then Solomon talks about God answering according to each days needs... not longing for tomorrow’s answers, but just what we need to today. Solomon closes this section insisting that the heart must be fully committed to Lord and that we would live daily to honor our God. Lord, we do okay asking for You to help us or others in hard times, but we don’t pray often enough for You to change our hearts. Amen