Divided Heart

Posts about losing a loved one or getting sick with Covid-19 always leave me wordless. So I reply with the broken-heart emoji, hoping it would convey exactly how I feel. I have been using this emoji too often lately, a clue that the catastrophe the coronavirus crammed into our chests has not ceased since last year. 

Then just like that, it is the middle of year again. I am also midway in reading my chronological Bible. 

Here we see King Solomon now building God’s house, which his father David dreamed of doing himself—he had all plans drawn, including the details. 

But God instructed David that it would be his son, Solomon, who will build the Temple and its courtyards . . . and if Solomon continues to obey God’s commands, his kingdom would last forever (1 Chronicles 28:6-7). 

Solomon uses the finest of materials (costly precious gems, metals, and stones; trees transported from other places), put in place by the best of artisans and hundreds of skilled workers. 

Simultaneously, however, Solomon builds his own palace and another palace for one of his concubines, the Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter, causing delay in the construction.  

While reading, my broken-heart emoji took a despicable dimension. It suddenly became the illustration of Solomon’s divided heart! 

His heart is not wholly for God; it is fractured by other loves.

Solomon’s heart starts to fragment during the building of the temple. It further splinters when he, in later years, start worshipping the idols of his foreign wives. 

When God’s temple is completed after 13 years, Solomon’s two other personal temples are completed as well. During the consecration of God’s Temple for worship, the Lord warns him of the dangers of a divided heart: 

If he and his children cease to follow the Lord and His commandments by worshiping other gods, the Lord will cut off Israel from the land given them, and God’s Temple will be destroyed (1 Kings 9:6). 

From a whole heart to a divided heart; from grace to disgrace. Now, isn't that heartbreaking?