Daily Reflections Feb 8, 2018

1 Kings 11: 4 - 13, Mark 7:  24 - 30.

“You have lifted me up from the pit and built my life from the gutter; I was but a rodent struggling to survive. You showed me mercy and gave me this place of honour. In respect, I now walk the paths as I am greeted by strangers. Protect me o Lord from the prowler. For your heart is all that I sought when I hungered. Let me not stumble and fall to temptations and forget the miracle of thy mercy that have made me thy servant”.

Hunger, humiliation, and suffering are the tools that the Lord uses to save His precious beings when they wander in temptation to seek a life that would lead to their destruction.King Solomon was established as King of Israel, succeeding his father King David who had established security along all the borders of Israel within a millennium after God made his Holy Covenant with the Patriarch Abraham. Fairly speaking, it took God less than a millennium to make a powerful, secure, thriving and wealthy nation from the seed of a single man. According to the Psalms, a day in heaven is equal to a thousand earthly years. Hence prophetically speaking, God made a covenant with Abraham and fulfilled it before the dawn of the next day. A miracle indeed! The Lord always fulfills His promises and He is merciful to guide His loved ones to secured paths leading to life and happiness. In the book of 1 Kings 11: 4 - 13, the Bible tells us how and why King Solomon went astray. The Bible tells us how God appeared to Solomon on two occasions to advise him to make better choices and live up to the Covenant he made with the Lord. But King Solomon was stubborn, arrogant, proud and careless.

King David brought up his son in a palace as a prince living in luxury in the midst of many servants waiting to serve him. God inspired David in the transition of power to Solomon and established his reign while maintaining the borders of Israel secure and doing away with any kind of mutiny that was brewing against Solomon. Thus, it is easily understood that Solomon had never experienced any suffering in his life. He went from a life of luxury to the throne of absolute power over all Israel without any struggle. Moreover, God kept his reign secure as a blessing to King David and as a means for King Solomon to focus on building the Temple in Jerusalem. God made all Israel’s neighbours sympathetic to King Solomon and they even helped Solomon with trade, with material and skilled workmanship for the construction Of God’s Temple in Jerusalem. God did all things and made everything possible to deliver this promise to Abraham and King David as a reward for their devotion to the Lord.But when King Solomon walked away from God’s Covenant to lead a life of sin, totally ignoring God’s warnings, God tore his blessings from King Solomon’s son and gave it King Solomon’s servant; another Israelite. Nevertheless, the Lord did maintain His covenants with King David. It is God’s prerogative to give whatever he wants to anyone he chooses on earth and God always maintains justice in its pure form.

The children of Abraham had strayed away from God over the ages, but God maintained His Word and fulfilled all the prophecies made through the many prophets with regard to the Messiah of the world Jesus Christ. But the children of Judah would not humbly accept their Messiah even after taking benefits of His healing touch and His teachings. So, God allowed the Judeans to walk away in pride while they humiliated their Messiah. Then God did the impossible by making a sign of Salvation out of that humiliating event. Thereafter, Christ’s crucifixion became a divine symbol of hope and salvation. In the Gospel of Mark 7: 24 - 30, Jesus blessed the Syrophoenician woman’s humility with healing and hope.Thus, it is paramount that we understand that ‘the way to Salvation is Humility’. We must begin by being humble to accept our sinfulness that makes us unworthy. We must grow in humility to repent for our sins understanding the gravity of their effect on God’s Covenant with mankind through Jesus Christ. We must renew our lifestyle and our way of thinking in humility to accept and obey God’s commandments, ordinances and decrees with prayer and submission to His Will. Other than just honouring the saints at the altars of our churches, we must take inspiration from the life of these saints by learning from their lifestyle and their decisions to add good value to our own lives.

As it is written in the Gospel, God can make descendants for Abraham even from stones. This time God will tear the sinners away from the covenant and burn them in the fires of Hell. The sinners will be condemned to the suffering of Hell until the day of the final judgement of all creation. Then these souls condemned to hell will be thrown into the lake of sulphur and brimstone into eternal damnation and annihilation. However, in His unfathomable mercy, God is loving and merciful. He has constituted the sacrament of reconciliation and the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist to give us opportunities to change ourselves and be worthy of his covenant of Salvation to inherit eternal life.

- By Bro Maryo