June 13: Of leaving it all in the pool

1 Kings 11:1-12:19

Acts 9:1-25

Psalm 131:1-3

Proverbs 17:4-5

At home, we talk a lot about finishing strong.  We think it is important.  Finishing strong can take many forms - studying hard into the early morning for a test, working hard all week on a project, doing all you can to achieve the best possible outcome.  Our middle child swims, and we have a term for it there - we ask "did you leave it in the pool?" - which means, did you expend all your energy during the race that you didn't have the strength to pull yourself out at the finish?  If you did, then you finished strong.  Well done.

Sadly, Solomon didn't finish strong.  I don't know what got to him - his fame?  his wealth?  his power?  But something got to him, and he let go of the Lord and His commandments.  He had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines [my mind just did a Windows 10 at the thought, and froze].  Many of them were foreign born - precisely the women God told Israel not to marry - and rather than stamp out their beliefs, he permitted them the exercise of their religion (in the name of tolerance, perhaps?) and those beliefs corrupted his.  And he died, apparently having forsaken the Lord - sort of like coming to a stop in the middle of the pool, rather than finishing hard to the wall.  And most of the kingdom was ripped from his family's hands.  

Now it is very easy to get all huffy and self righteous about Solomon, but the truth of the matter is, I am far more like him than I am my son when he swims hard to the wall.  See if you're like me, you start with the best of intentions - "this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad!"  and "I will wait upon the Lord" and  I promise to "be still and know that He is God."  Then the day starts, and I lose focus.  Or I get angry.  Or I get frustrated.  And the rejoicing, the waiting, the being still...all that disappears, and I find myself in the middle of the pool, no hard push to the wall.  

The good news is that, no matter how far away away from the wall we stop, no matter how far we stray from God, He knows where to find us...and He knows how to bring us back to Him.  My parents will attest to the fact I was (am?) a difficult case...but I think I am nowhere near as hard a case as Saul was.  And as we can see from today's NT reading, God reached into the middle of the pool, pointed Saul in the right direction, and gave him the strength to start swimming, to finish hard.

Father - we confess our Solomonic weakness.  As you did with Saul, do whatever it takes that we might once again face the right direction, and give us the energy to start up again, and to finish each task You give us, each day You give us, this life You give us, strong.