We were working on a project together, and I was thinking it was time we were finished. “Well, that’s near enough”, I said as I put my gear down. My brother looked at it, and said, “Near enough is not good enough, Sis, you’ll have to spend a bit more time on it!” Those words have stuck with me for over fifty years, and whenever I am tempted to think “Near enough”, they come back to haunt me.
It reminded me of a talk we heard once about King Solomon in the Bible….when King Solomon first became king, God appeared to him in a vision and told him to ask whatever he wanted and He would give it to him! What a gift!! Solomon asked to be given wisdom to rule his people well and wisely; he chose what was good, but it was not the best. We would normally think that the fact that he asked for this, was a good thing to ask for, but in his older age he stopped trusting the Lord for safety, and used his human reasoning instead. He figured that if he married princesses from the surrounding nations, that their fathers would not attack the land their daughter was in!
But there seemed to be more and more of these princesses, and he ended up with “seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. And likewise did he for all his foreign wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. (1 Kings 11:3,4,8)”. Not only this, but he built temples for them!
What a warning this is for us! No-one could have had a better start than Solomon did and yet he allowed himself to be swayed by the opinions of others rather than what God had told him. We have to be so careful that we continue to read what God’s Word has to say to us, and to follow what it tells us. Those who we associate with closely, have a greater influence over us than we think.
We all know the dangers there are in our teenagers keeping company with the wrong crowd, but here was a mature man, and supposedly a very wise man, being swayed by the opinions of his many wives. Instead of him being the leader of his house, he was being led by the women of his household. He could have said his thoughts and actions were “near enough” as far as God was concerned, but they weren’t enough to keep him safe from turning away from the things of God. So you can see that we need to be so awake to the dangers around us and not allow ourselves to be swayed by anything that will take all our thoughts….any game, club, or interest that takes all our time or thoughts needs to be pruned out of our minds!