Today's Reading: 1 Kings 4

A Beautiful Mind

The Bible often uses the phrase, “as the sand on the seashore” as its way of saying “a ginormous amount.” In Genesis 22, for example, Abraham is told that his descendants will be “as numerous as the sand on the seashore.” In Psalm 139, the thoughts God has toward His children “would outnumber the grains of sand.” In 1 Samuel 13, the Philistine army is said to contain “soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore.” Jeremiah 33 tells us that the number of God’s heavenly angels is so large that they “cannot be numbered as the sands of the sea cannot be measured.” This is the Bible’s way of saying that there is such a large number that, even if you tried to count them, the number would evade you. It is a hyperbolic phrase which simply means “measureless” or “uncountable.”

Here in 1 Kings 4, we are told that Solomon was granted a “breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore.” This means that God gave Solomon so much wisdom and understanding that it was immeasurable. He was so brilliant that his IQ score could not even be measured. This tells us that he was more brilliant of mind than any other person on Earth. Solomon was an “egghead” with a beautiful mind and “ginormous” mental capacity. In answer to Solomon’s heartfelt and humble prayer, God gave him wisdom and understanding beyond measure. 

Why did God give Solomon such incomparable wisdom? There are several reasons. First, because Solomon was a worshipper of God. We are told in 1 Kings 1, that Solomon “made sacrifices unto the Lord.” He, like his father David, had come to know the LORD as the one-and-only true God who was worthy of his devotion. Second, because of his humility. Although raised as “royalty,” Solomon did not have a sense of entitlement or inflated self-worth. When he came to God, he came in true humility. Third, God granted Solomon wisdom because that’s what he asked for. The Lord had told him to ask for whatever he wants and Solomon asked for the great amounts wisdom and discernment it would take to govern God’s people. Fourth, Solomon was granted this surpassing level of wisdom because God had a plan and purpose for Solomon’s life – as a writer of Scripture. As Solomon learned great lessons of wisdom, he wrote them down as snippets of truth that all future followers of God could learn from and apply to their lives.

Finally, God granted Solomon the “gift” of wisdom to give us a real-life illustration of the “gifts of the Holy Spirit” which He would later bestow en masse upon the members of His Church. He wanted all of us to see that supernatural things can happen to normal people who will humble themselves and pray and submit themselves to God’s plan for their lives. Just as He granted Solomon a beautiful mind, He wants to grant you special powers and abilities to serve Him in a way that is beyond measure – as the sand on the seashore!