FILLING HEAVEN WITH SMOKE

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Reference: 1 King’s 3:4-13

When one is solving a question they have no answer to, using trial and error with improvement on subsequent attempts becomes an acceptable approach. But mind you, consistent results will never be a product of continual trial and error. There must arrive a point in time where one is able to identify a pattern, hence a formula that guarantees the same results at every turn.

Solomon is sometimes seen as one guy who got lucky. He went to bed and while He slept, God appears to him. In that one night, he transacts a business that shifted him into a strange dimension of wisdom, wealth and honour. Yet, the closer we look at his story, the more we will realise that this contact with God was not by luck, it was provoked because Solomon knew where to go and what to do.

There were many high places, but Gibeon, the great high place, was his preferred destination and on that altar, he presented a thousand burnt offerings. In a very literal way, “he filled heaven with smoke and a pleasant aroma”. That was how he provoked that visitation. On both a spiritual and even natural front therefore, I dare ask “do you know where to go and do you know what to do?

Without a clear understanding of patterns and formulae therefore, you run the risk of becoming stranded thinking everything runs purely on time and chance.

There is a place for discovery, preparation, provocation, and growth.

#sly