Wisdom in Administration and Organisation

My upbringing gave me the impression that church gatherings were about excitement and noise.

God was with us when our emotions were stirred. Truly the Spirit was moving if people were shouting hallelujah, people were crying and whoever was preaching/singing was encouraged to do an encore. If I didn’t feel buzzed up after a meeting it was felt the Spirit just wasn’t there.

That kind of approach also determined how I read scripture, so when it came to the first 18 verses of 1 Kings 4, I would zone out. Like the genealogy and most of Leviticus, this just appeared to be lists and names either too difficult to pronounce or too boring to digest. After all it wasn’t going to get a lot of excitement saying Elihoreph and Ahijah were secretaries.

Thankfully I begun to appreciate the reason for sections of scripture like verses 1-18 of 1 Kings 4. This happened as I also began to appreciate God in the silence as well as in the noise. It happened as I saw God in the mundane as well as the miraculous.

If you skipped this section and read the episode and the episode after, you’d have a wise king sorting out a baby momma dilemma and a country loving life in prosperity. What these crucial 18 verses do is they help us to understand why these things were. That reason is because Solomon, like his father before him and much like Joseph when Pharoah appointed him First Minister, applied wisdom in organisation and administration.

We have names in positions covering the religious, political and military. Solomon has the right people in the right place looking after the right area. Solomon knows that it’s not about him having all the answers, but it’s about a productive structure in place with people doing what they need to do to contribute to a harmonious, fair and effective running of the country. That takes good organisation and administration.

I read that and nod my head and go that’s good for him and good for Israel. No wonder he was the wisest.

I am not in charge of a small village, let alone a country. So how on earth can this affect me? Well I may not have a country, but I still have a life that needs organising and managing. That requires wisdom. From the time I wake up to the food I eat; from the relationships I develop to the habits I nurture. These all require effective organisation or I’ll end up in a familiar position of complaining about there not being enough hours in the day.

Jesus is greater than Solomon. In His time on earth He managed to accomplish His mission because He knew when to pray, when to move on from one place to another, when to sort out a situation or when to assign His followers to get something done. He did this because He looked to His Father and was lead by the Spirit to do all He was meant to do.

The same Spirit that lived in Him, lives in us and enables us to freely tap into the same wisdom to allow us to organise and manage our lives, relationships, resources and time faithfully and fruitfully.

For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden