1 Kings 2:13-25. Rash asking.
In my time I have been as thoughtless and rash as Abonijah in chasing my desires. Like David, a lot of my trouble has been with women and my thoughtless desires. And like Abonijah, I didnamprsquot think about the consequences of my actions or how others might interpret them. I tended to think that people would be positive about whatever I proposed, like Bathsheba, Abiathar, and Joab were with Abonijahamprsquos ideas.
I once asked my high school girlfriend to marry me while we were in the early stages of university. She wisely declined my less than romantic proposal. I had no plan for our life, just a desire for a comfortable life with her.
I married my first wife after she got pregnant during our affaire, which led to her divorce from her first husband. I had no business dating a married woman older than I, and my rash actions caused a lot of problems for many of us.
When my first wife was in her dying stages of alcoholism, I had an affaire with a younger woman, rashly and thoughtlessly committing adultery again in order to chase an ill-conceived desire for my own happiness.
She didnamprsquot want to marry me but wanted me to father a child with her, a rash desire on her part that, like Bathsheba, I granted. The consequences following my first wifeamprsquos death, my daughteramprsquos birth, and no wife to raise her with brought my entire world down, leaving me with only my life and my faith to meditate on, find my sins, and repent. And then, by Godamprsquos grace, I found a new wife I didnamprsquot know I was looking for.
A couple of years ago, I made a rash decision to buy land to build a house with my wife, a decision we did not consult our community on. God gave us many warnings in the form of crazy changes in government regulations and construction problems, but we plowed on and ended up disappointed, frustrated, and unhappy with a house weamprsquoll never live in.
One of the most thoughtless decisions I rashly made out of laziness was to stop trying to learn Korean. It remains a senseless decision that shuts me out of much of what our Pastor Kim and others say, despite pretty good translators. It limits my communication with the people in the environment I inhabit, but mostly it blocks my communication with my church people. In the last month, I have received enough reminders from enough people to prayerfully reconsider.
Application: start learning Korean again and donamprsquot give up this time.
Lord, let me be more diligent in finding my way in life through your word. Stir up your Holy Spirit in me that I may follow your will, which you tell me each day.
