Solomon Consolidates His Reign (1 Kings 2:12-29)Occasionally my Bible that has devotionals in it will include one without any reflection questions. This one surprised me in that regard. Nonetheless, I will point out a couple sentences that stood out to me. The first one was "The purpose of spiritual discipline is to help us recognize what is already a fact and to open us up to the reality of God in human life." As I reflect on this last month, I am re-remembering that our pastors told us about this a month ago. The point of fasting, or focused prayer, or any other similar discipline is that it's not about us getting our prayers answered. (I'm still guilty of that, and I'm aware that I'll likely be fighting this battle for the rest of my life.) If anything changes as a result of praying and fasting, it's me. Not my circumstances.
"David's kingdom was established into the hands of Solomon. How Solomon ruled and lived personally remained to be seen. We may feel established in our lives, our marriage, spiritual journey, or career. There is a danger that we can get too comfortable. We must reflect daily on how we are living before the Lord. God is present. The purpose of spiritual discipline is to help us recognize what is already a fact and to open us up to the reality of God in human life. The best life we can live is a life oriented toward God. To live any other way is to rebel against our Creator and to destroy what we were made to be."
--William O. Paulsell, Taste and See
The other sentence that jumped out was the very next one: "The best life we can live is a life oriented toward God." I would like to say that I have improved on this, just over the last month. What has become clear in a new way is that, when acting out via an addiction, my life is not oriented toward God in that moment. It means staying in that place that would ordinarily lead me to act out and soothe myself, (fear, anxiety, anger, grief, shame, etc) and then reach out to God in that. I've done that a few times, but in my book not enough times, because it's still not second nature to me. The thought of Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hours" concept sounds both appealing and overwhelming to me at the same time. But it would solve that. And recently when I did choose to reach out to God in my moment of anxiety because I really wanted to find a quick fix to temporarily remove that feeling, I heard back from the Holy Spirit: "Expect Jesus."