Make Excellent Requests
By Mike Kai
If you could ask God for anything, what would it be?
God had chosen Solomon to build the First Temple. To do this, Solomon would have to succeed his father on the throne of Israel. Technically, a king could designate his chosen successor to the throne. Traditionally, this role would go to the oldest living son, but influenced by his wife, Bathsheba, David had Solomon (his tenth son) anointed as his successor.
For the sake of brevity, I am summarizing the passage from 1 Kings 3. Following David’s death, Solomon sacrificed a lavish 1,000 burnt offerings to God. Later that evening, God appeared to Solomon in a dream and asked, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!” Here I should pause to mention the fact that God appearing to Solomon in a dream is pretty notable stuff. It’s amazing God would appear to any of us in a dream, right? God can still do that and still does. God chose to appear to Solomon on this occasion to encourage him as the new king of Israel and to affirm Solomon’s profound devotion to Yahweh.
Equally notable are Solomon’s responses in the interaction that follows. Solomon praised God for the faithfulness the Lord showed in keeping His promise to David—that one of his descendants would always sit on his throne. Then he continued with the comment that he was like a small child who didn’t know his way around, so he needed God’s help to govern.
Two things impress me about this:
1. Solomon’s demonstration of humility.
He was the king at a time when that meant complete authority and control, yet he referred to himself as a little child when it came to shouldering his responsibilities.
2. His acknowledgment of God keeping His promises.
This is quite significant since one of the blessings of the original covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 22:17 was that Abraham would have so many descendants he couldn’t count them. So what, you say? Consider that more than a millennium passed between Abraham’s death and the beginning of Solomon’s reign. This shows that God always keeps His promises. While circumstances and ordinary human limitations may prevent you from always keeping your promises, when it comes to great customer service, honoring your word is certainly a worthwhile goal to keep in mind.
The obvious awe and respect Solomon had for this kind of God emerged in his next statement, where he asked for the understanding he would need to govern Israel. Wouldn’t it be amazing if this were the prayer of everybody who was elected to office? Imagine how conditions might differ if leaders said, “God, I’m new at this, and these people are too numerous, so please give me a wise and understanding heart, that I might be the mayor of Honolulu . . . that I might be the governor of this state . . . that I might be the president of this great nation. Lord, let me have wisdom.”
This is an excerpt from "That Doesn’t Just Happen: How Excellence Accelerates Everything” by Pastor Mike Kai. Learn more here.
Mike Kai is passionate about building the worldwide church. He has guided a small congregation in Hawaii from humble beginnings in 2001 to a thriving, multi-site congregation named Inspire Church. Mike and his wife, Lisa, reside in Honolulu and are the proud parents of three daughters and two grandchildren.