“When I was a boy in my father’s house, still tender, and an only child of my mother, he taught me and said, “Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live. Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them. Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you. Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” (Prov 4:3-7NIV)
Those are Solomon’s words to us. And he says them to let us know that greatness did not just happen to him; he prepared himself for it. How? It was by taking very seriously the teaching and discipline of his father, David.
As he shows us in that text, when he was but a boy, his father used to teach him all kinds of things. And among the things he taught him was the need for him to go for wisdom and understanding with everything he had. Why? Wisdom and understanding are supreme; they are more important than anything else a man could own or inherit. And the one who has them will be honoured and exalted by them.
You can, then, see why it was wisdom and understanding that he asked for, when God came to him in a dream and asked him to tell Him what he wanted Him to do for him. He had so meditated on these things that even in a dream he had to talk about them to God. And the reason he gave himself to meditating on them that way was that he took what his father had told him about them very seriously. That means he agreed with his father that by going for wisdom and understanding he would be preparing himself for greatness in life. (Cf. 1Kings 3)
The point I making, at any rate, is that Solomon’s focus, as a young man, was not merely on taking the throne of his father; rather, it was on making himself fit to be approved by God, his father and the people as the next king over the nation of Israel. And did he get their approval or not? He did. First, he was his father’s choice for the throne. Second, and more importantly, he was God’s choice for the throne. Then, when he ascended the throne and began to lead the people with wisdom and justice, it did not take them much time at all to accept him as worthy of the throne of his father, David.
But think about his elder brothers that were after getting the throne for themselves. Did any of them succeed? No! Why? None of them was prepared for true leadership. None of them had the fear of God, the wisdom and the discipline required to sit on that throne. And why did they lack these things? The reason was that they did not yield themselves to learn from their father, David.
Amnon, for instance, was a rapist. And he was so lacking in self-control that he even raped his own sister, Tamar. Therefore, even though as the firstborn he should have naturally been the crown prince, he lost his life before his time. He was caught by surprise and assassinated. And that was also possible because of his lack of self-control in handling wine. He, as the first heir to the throne of David, was supposed to be on his guard always. But he was not on his guard on the day he was brutally killed while getting himself drunk. That, of course, shows that he did not learn much, if he learnt anything at all, from his father about leadership and soldiery. (Cf. 2Sam 13)
What about Absalom? He was murderous, crooked and immoral. Instead of learning from his father and gaining the discipline needed to lead as king, he was busy using his fine face and smooth lips to plot how he would take over the kingdom from him by force. And did he succeed? Yes, it initially looked like he was going to succeed. But it only took a while for his father’s men to snatch the kingdom from his hand again and get rid of him. How, then, could someone like that keep the nation safe, if he were to be king? (Cf. 2Sam 16-18)
Then we have Adonijah, who also put himself forward and said, “I will be king.” What made him think he was fit to be king? Well, the reason was that he had some entitlement mentality. As we are shown in the bible, his father never rebuked or corrected him about anything. So, he was an overpampered child. And he felt that he could take anything he wanted for himself, including the kingdom of his father. But was he trained, disciplined and raised to be king by his father? No! And was he allowed to become king? No! Instead, he was rejected.
It is actually both interesting and surprising that the same David that raised Solmon and brought him up well would not discipline Adonijah at all. Why? We are not told the reason in the bible. Perhaps someone was getting in his way whenever he wanted to discipline him early in his life. We would not know. But we do know that by not raising the way he raised Solomon, he was showing that he had no intention of putting him in any position of greatness or significance in his kingdom. And since he too did nothing about gaining whatever discipline and training his father would not give him from the word of God, God also would not consider or choose him to be His king over Israel, though he was very handsome. What a waste of beauty! (Cf. 1Kings 1)
Well, my point all long is that greatness will not just happen to you because you live with it or very close to it. You will have to prepare yourself for it, if it will be yours. So, you need to focus more on gaining the discipline and wisdom you need for greatness in life than on greatness itself. That means as you find opportunities to learn and be trained to increase in fruitfulness and usefulness in life, make the most of them. Don’t excuse yourself from the word of God. Don’t reject discipline. Don’t run away from training. Otherwise, true greatness will always run away from you, even if you come as close to it as the air you breathe in.
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