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Dumbfounded


1Kings:9,10,11

Richness and pageantry; unimaginable, unfathomable wisdom. People, kings and queens come to see with their own eyes, the king's wisdom and all gaudiness, to admire and pay homage. Everyone wants to be friends with Solomon now, because he is powerful, he is rich. Israel is at its peak now.
Every kind of people wants to have alliance with this greatest king of all time. In whose country gold is as common as it is used as utensils, silver is as common as stones. The king's wisdom and richness is only incresing day by day.
Befuddled by the wealth and fame he has acquired and filled with pride that he could do anything under the sun, Solomon falls face flat on the one thing God had asked not to do, be loyal to Him who had asked not to marry to intermingle with the people retained in the promised land. But it is said that Solomon loved them all and they turned his heart to worship other gods. His love to other women, forced him to build shrines for pagan gods. A king who took seven years to build a pompous temple for the one true God, falls down low enough to build shrines for non existent gods.
And the final epitaph about such wise a king - praised by everyone, but rejected by God - Solomon did what is evil in the Lord's sight. He refused to follow the Lord completely as his father David had done.

What has dumbfounded you? What has taken away your first love? What has happened to you? What has dragged you away from that bosom of love of your Abba? Where is your initial intimacy?
Is it knowledge or wisdom that you gained in due course? Is it the richness and the pompous wealth that the world offers that has blindfolded you? Who are the foreign women who dragged you away? It's time. 
Let your epitaph (that God would say) be not as pathetic as Solomon's.
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