One of the paradoxes I have noticed over the years as a Christian worker is people who never cared about God’s business genuinely expecting Him to drop everything He is doing to attend to their affairs when they are in trouble! I can find no better illustration for an attempt to reap where one has not sown. All that some will ever give to God’s service is their barest minimum.
It has never ceased to amaze me how one who sows sparingly expects to reap bountifully. Sowing and reaping are governed by their degrees. This convenient self-delusion carries beyond the church to other spheres of life, such as relationships and marriage, where those who put in the least desire to reap the maximum!
We both sing and preach that God will show up for those who didn’t show up for Him! The church is therefore reaping exactly what it has sown. As a Pastor, I have observed how those who won’t commit the very rudimentary in the church relationship, which is faithful attendance at church meetings and services, expect their Pastor to be head and feet in their business when they enter into crisis.
Every relationship in which commitment flows from only one side is doomed to failure. There is so much talk about false ministries but we have given little thought to the possibility that many who took to deception were originally genuine but took to that way simply because they dealt with dissincere and manipulative followers.
Here in our passage, Solomon touched God so much by the prayer he prayed. He was told to ask whatever he wished God to do for him but instead requested for what would help him accomplish God’s task committed to him most effectively. He asked for divine enablement in the form of wisdom.
What mattered to God came first. It was actually the only item in his request. Real faith grows out of what we have taken upon ourselves to do for God. Many have complained about spiritual dryness without recognizing that it was the direct result of self-service.
To get God into your matter therefore, what matters to Him has to matter to you. This is the least you yourself will accept in your relationships. You can expect to see God at work in areas where you have not even made a direct request, and that is because He was always aware of them.
