Giving The Glory To God

"While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned around and blessed them. Then he said:
"Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who with his own hand has fulfilled what he promised with his own mouth to my father David." 1 Kings 8:14-15

This morning's Bible reading took me to the book of 1 Kings. I'm not sure what led me there in the first place, but I picked up chapter one and read straight through to chapter 8. What struck me as I read is that there are a lot of details there that one may think is trivial. In those chapters, King David dies and the Kingship of Israel is passed along to Solomon. Solomon then proceeds to build a temple and his palace. The temple took seven years to build, and the palace thirteen. The whole time, 1 Kings is describing the details that went into building each one. Normally, I think I would have just kind of skimmed over the details. I mean, why is it important that we know that one room was 50 cubits long? And why was it important to note that the pieces to the temple were finished off-site, that no iron working tools were used on the actual temple itself? I honestly don't know, God does, and I'm sure those details are there for a reason.

But as I read through these details, I noticed something. I read a lot, and I recognized a pattern building. The tone of what I was reading was building a sort of suspense. As each detail was revealed, it was like another step closer to something really and truly exciting. It was not unlike driving down the road to a destination and seeing the signs off to the side that tell you you're getting closer- you get even more excited as each sign goes by, and the excitement and suspense begins mounting. And then you finally get to your destination.

As I read 1 Kings, chapter 8, I realized that I was about to read something really exciting, and then I had to read it twice. So I'll paste it again here.

"While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned around and blessed them. Then he said:
"Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who with his own hand has fulfilled what he promised with his own mouth to my father David."

It took Solomon seven years to build a temple and thirteen years to build his palace, but look who he gave the credit to. He didn't stand in front of the assembly of Israel and say "look what I did" or even "look what we all did, working together". He said "Look what God did." He gave all the credit and all the glory to God for seeing the project through to completion. He praised God for fulfilling His promise to David in front of the nation of Israel- any other king in that position would have praised himself.

There is definitely something to learn here and to take away from this. No matter how hard we work, or how long we work at something, it is not for us that we are toiling. We are toiling so that we can give God the glory for what He has allowed us to accomplish. We are giving God the glory for fulfilling his promises to us. It would be so easy at this point to look at Andy's success with work this year and say that Andy did well, Andy worked very hard and has deserved the rewards that has come along with that hard work. And while all that is true, the credit and the glory goes all to God. God is the one that provided the employer and the lucrative work that Andy's been doing all summer. God is the one who provided the energy Andy's needed to accomplish each day of work, and God is the one who provided the paychecks that have blessed us greatly.

The fact is, we are nothing without God. When we accomplish something great, it is through God that we accomplish it. God gives us those abilities and that drive to succeed at our tasks-no matter what the task is. It could be something as simple as baking a cake or something as complicated as building a house. Without God, we are nothing, and we need to give Him the glory for all we do and accomplish. We can thank God for Solomon's example, and take it to heart and remember that we are not seeking praise for ourselves, we are seeking praise for God.