Ask What I Shall Give You – Week 2

Solomon began his reign with a public visit to God’s altar. It was on that night after those sacrifices were offered that God appeared to him in a dream. When God, as if in return,  offered him anything he asked for, Solomon asked for wisdom to govern the people of Israel. God gave him the wisdom he asked for, but he also gave him other things that he didn’t ask for, such as fame, power, and wealth. He told him in 1 Kings: “I will give you a wise and discerning heart… if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands.” It is this important condition attached to God’s promise that Solomon neglected later in his life.

In his prime, Solomon became so famous for his wisdom that the Queen of Sheba made a long journey not just to see his wealth but to hear his wisdom. His wise words were truly legendary, making him the man most associated with wisdom in the Bible. I love David Pawson’s summary of Solomon’s three books. According to him, Solomon wrote the Song of Songs when he was a young man, so much in love that he forgot about God altogether. For this reason, Pawson refers to it as a book of the heart. He wrote Proverbs as a middle-aged man and thus Pawson calls it a book of the will. His last book, Ecclesiastes, was written in old age. Pawson calls it a book of the mind, as he meditates on his life and wonders whether he has achieved anything with it.

While we are mostly going to spend time with Solomon as a middle-aged father in the book of Proverbs, there will be times that we will get a glimpse of him as a young lover in Song of Songs and as an elder philosopher in Ecclesiastes. As we experience God through the seasons of Solomon’s life, it is my prayer that our relationship with the Lord will grow and that we too will be able to joyfully confess: His banner over mé is Love!

This brings me to God’s question to Solomon – Ask what I shall give you! It is a question that challenges me every time I read it, always wondering what would my answer have been at such a tender age. I mean, even now I struggle to come up with a clear and unambiguous answer, one that will similarly change the trajectory of my life. But what really really challenges me about Solomon’s answer is that it closely resembles his father’s prayer for him: “Only may the LORD give you wisdom and understanding, and give you charge concerning Israel, that you may keep the law of the LORD your God.” If ever a father’s prayer for his son and a king’s prayer for his successor was answered, this was it! As such, it must count among some of the most profound prayers in all of history.

As we are still on the threshold of 2023, my prayer today is twofold. One that each one of us will know how to answer God today, for He is posing this same question to us: Ask what I shall give you! And secondly, that our intercession for our children will be bold and deep and tangible and absolutely in line with the will of the Father so that they too will know how to answer God when he tests them – Ask what I shall give you!