God does the impossible and we cannot limit what he can do or who He chooses to use to reveal his majesty. He is also the one who can bring back the dead and turn hearts of stone into jars of clay. God is the only one who can satisfy our souls nothing else will. No job can satisfy, no platform, no leadership position or title. And no goal, nor a family, spouse, singleness, can satisfy us like Jesus can. Nothing we do outside of God can bring us satisfaction. Instead it becomes an idol in place of God. All throughout the Bible we see the Israelite's choose something else besides God they turn away from Him and make foreign gods that are idols.
Basically, these idols are not real but fake counterfeits that do nothing. For example from the beginning the Israelite's say they will follow God and they do for a short time and then they turn away and become unfaithful to God by making their own false gods out of gold or wood. The point I am making is they are trying to be self-sufficient and provide for themselves but in the end they are miserable especially when they are oppressed in Egypt. Psalm 81 sums what happens with the Israelite's. “Hear, O my people while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me! There shall be no strange god among you, you shall not bow down to a foreign god. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. But my people did not listen to my voice. Israel would not submit to me. So I have them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels.”(Psalm 81:8-12ESV).
The reason I am sharing this is because we do not have to settle for this and we do not have to fall into the same trap the Israelite's did. We can choose to remain in Jesus and be faithful. That is where free will comes in we have to choose to be obedient to God it is a daily choice to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. God remains faithful even when we do not. We can be like King David was and realize our miss steps and repent of our false idols and what we have put in place in God.
False idols are anything that turns us away from God. It can be a job. A title or position in a company, or running away from something or someone. It can be a controlling or abusive relationship. It can be anything. For instance King David fell trap to falling in love with another mans wife and having sex with her and then killing the said husband. Now if that is not scandalous I don’t know what is. Yet King David did realize his faults and sins and did repent of it which we see in Psalm 51. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”(Psalm 51:10-12ESV).
So if you are at a point in life where you think its too late or why bother trying or if you think its too late for God to flip things and restore what is lost then you are mistaken. God did not give up on David because he messed up with Bathsheba. David realized he did something outside of God’s will and made an idol of it but he repented of it. David did have to pay the consequences of his mistake I mean God was not going to let David run away from the mistake that he made sleeping with another mans wife. Whereas with King Davids son Solomon did the opposite of what David did when it came to his own sins. Solomon was very wise in wisdom but he was not wise in choosing the right wives and where his heart was concerned. Solomon was very foolish when it came to choosing wives. And he turned his heart away from God. Solomon let his many foreign wives become idols because they all had foreign idols as false gods. After many years in growing up in church and being a Christian I have heard that it was just because they were women that it was their fault in turning Solomons heart away from God. Excuse me but lets reflect back on Genesis God created the woman out of the rib of man because it was not good for man to be alone and he created the woman to be a helpmate to Adam that is why he created Eve out of his own image too. Women are not the problem and men are not the problem we are both created in God’s image. And lets get this straight not all women are hussies or home-wreckers there are some God fearing single women who are looking for a God fearing man who has a heart after God’s own heart and who will pursue her.
However, Solomon was a grown man and can choose for himself what he is going to pursue and what he is not. Thus, it was not the fact that these wives were women but because they were worshiping false idols that Solomon chose to follow false gods and lies not the truth of God. So I urge you to go read 1 Kings 11:1-8 for yourself with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. Your probably wondering what does King David and Solomon have in common or what is the point of sharing part of their stories is that each one was faced with the choice to follow God or turn away and run. Each one choose differently. Solomon chose to follow false gods, and King David chose to follow God in his imperfect way. God can do the impossible in our lives and restore what has been lost and satisfy our souls but we have to have a willing spirit to follow God and submit to him. We cannot expect God to bless us if we are living outside of his will. God can turn a heart of stone into clay that is willing to follow him. God can restore relationships and bring back people into our lives. God can do the unexpected in our lives if we are willing to allow him to work but he won’t do it the same way every time. We cannot control how God works and who God uses. God brings us back to the heart who we really are. God can show us the heart of people if we are willing to look through his eyes not our own. But we have to be willing to stop worshiping what we thought and what we think especially about other people. God can flip situations that appear lost. That is what Jesus came to do flip and do the impossible.
Wrapping your head around the fact that when God speaks it is so, is mind blowing. To think when God speaks miracles happen, we are changed forever by his love and what he speaks over us. We are transformed through his love and through the Holy Spirit. We are led into all truth and when the Holy Spirit convicts us and speaks it is only on the authority of God the Father. The fact is what God has spoken no one can reverse it or take it back or make it disappear. It is just so, like in the beginning when God created the heavens, the earth and man in his image he spoke it, it was so.
-Elizabeth Hughes
English Standard Version Study Bible (2008) Crossway Publishing, Wheaton ILL,