Not only yours.

Hello, you beautiful people!
So the story goes that I have half written a pretty though provoking entry on Easter (yes, I know it's after Easter). But frankly, I don't have time today to other-half write the post because--get this--it's going to be a long one. Fortunately, though, I think you can handle it because let's be honest, most of mine are long ones : ) That being said, basically it all means that if you are ok with me posting something about Easter, say, next week, then next week I will post something about Easter.
How does that sound?

But I did want to say hi and to leave you with a thought. I have been in I Kings lately in my devotion time (remember Sheba and that bit about Praying Differently?) and am starting to pick up on a theme which goes something like this:
                What you do affects other people.

Novel, I know.
But seriously.

The book talks a lot about Solomon at the beginning; it touts him for being a great king, for building sensational edifices, being sought out by *all* of the greatest people in the world at that time.
A man to know, let me tell you.

However (why is there always a "however"?--OH that's right, because we are human), Solomon had one issue he was not victorious in: WOMEN.

Right there, chapter 11, starting in verse 1: "King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter--Moabites, AMmonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord...."

See, right off the bat you see the main problems. "Many" and "Foreign" and "Besides."
Bad news bears.
Why? Because those are all direct violations of what God had said to do. The Bible does not teach "Many" wives, nor wives you are note equally yoked with, nor having wives besides the first one you have...
Let me tell you a little story. I was in the middle east last summer with a people that do not worship the same God I do. And in their religion they are allowed to have a handful of wives, and yet, none of the people there did. So one day I posed the question to the elder in the family, "You are allowed to have more than one wife, and yet none of you do. Why is this?"
And this adorable grandfather figure responds back in perfectly broken English., "Yes yes, our god say it ok. But me? Uhhh.... Me know that the heart only love one. If two wives, one will never be loved good."

Brilliant. Even worldly wisdom knows it's a terrible idea.
So while Solomon was the wisest man to ever live, he wasn't right about this point. And it became his downfall.
Maybe he was on a power trip and wanted all the royal women in the land to be his alone and no one else, or maybe he just could not deny himself any beauty his eyes beheld.
Whatever the reason, it became his downfall.
And right there in the middle of it all is this little principle that is tolling like a bell through my mind: What you do affects other people.
The "you" I am talking about in this bit, obviously, is his wives.

They were who they are, you can't fault them for that. Which is exactly why God prescribes a "No-go" policy about foreign women. Because here is what I am learning: we have the power to turn the hearts of other people.
And I would personally tend to think that the phrase "turn their hearts" is a little too liberal, and YET--there it is. Right there in the text. "His wives turned his heart...."

Yikes.
This quickens my breath why?
Because I wonder whose heart I am turning.
And frankly, I wonder in what direction?

Those close to me. My family, my friends, those I work with, minister with, minister to.
All of you here who read this little thought journal of mine.
Am I turning hearts?
To what?
To whom?
Away from what?
Away from whom?

A sobering thought, Wolfies. One I don't think we should take lightly.

And one more thing. Repeatedly in this book is the phrase: "He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, walking in the ways of his father and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit."

Yikes.Again.

Causing others to sin?

See, our sin is not our own, kids. Don't ever think that.
Because a lot of really bad kings long ago thought that and actually, rather than just committing it themselves, thinking it was their private sin, their personal vice, a guilty pleasure only theirs, it wasn't.
Your sin is not your own.

What you do affects other people, babes.
Let us live rightly.