written by Jerry Runser

In today's reading, Solomon starts taking charge as the new king. Adonijah continues his political maneuvering, and in Solomon's mind it is time to do away with the older brother who would always be a threat to his reign. Solomon also has Joab put to death because of his treachery in David's rule and his support of Adonijah's schemes.

This passage makes me think about the role of trust in our lives, and the importance of being trustworthy. As the new king, Solomon needed people he could trust to support and obey him. At the same time he was obeying his father, David, who trusted that Solomon would "deal with Joab". Monarchies work OK when people obey their king or queen. There is order when people trust their king or queen to do the right things for their subjects. The Bible and world history are filled with monarchies that fail or are overthrown because the ruler proves that they cannot be trusted to do what is in their subjects' best interest. And so, modern governments were formed that don't rely on the goodness or capability of one fallible human. The U.S. has one such system, balancing power and giving people a say. We are blessed to live in a country where the founders were mostly spiritual people and built a governmental system on solid values and principles. Our economic system, based largely on free markets, has given us a standard of living that is envied by many. And yet, even we have many problems because people we counted on turned out not to be trustworthy. The News seems to be an endless stream of stories of greed, corruption, and ethical breakdowns. As I mentioned in an earlier reflection, the only society that can work perfectly is God's kingdom. Because God is the only being who is completely "trustworthy". ("In God we Trust" has a nice ring to it). I guess this is why God gave us a model of a kingdom to think about our relationship with him. If we trust and love him, all things will work together for the good. But, until we are in His kingdom we live in this imperfect world. How well things go depends a lot on how trustworthy we and others are. The better Christians we are, the more trustworthy we are. People who love one another and have best interests of others at heart can be trusted. People who obey the commandments (don't lie, don't steal, don't covet, ….) are pretty trustworthy. God's Word is their guide. They don't gossip; They do what they say they are going to do. We can complain about problems in our society, but one thing we can do about improving it is to be trustworthy ourselves.

A fellow traveler,
Jerry