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, Gwenyth, you’ll have to spend a bit more time on it!” Those words have stuck with me for over forty years, and whenever I am tempted to think “Near enough”, they come back to haunt me!
King Solomon was one who chose what was good, but it was not the best. When he first became king, we are told that one night he had a vivid dream. In it, he heard God tell him to choose whatever he would like and it would be given to him. At this stage, Solomon was still new to being a king, and the thought of having to solve disputes between people at times was overwhelming. So he asked for wisdom to be able to govern the people he was over, as he should. God replied that seeing he had asked this thing that was not so much for himself, but for the benefit of others, that he would be granted this in abundance. Not only that, but he would also be given wealth and health. We see as we read through the book of Second Chronicles in the Bible, chapters 1-10, how God did indeed bless Solomon with great wisdom and wealth. But there were times when Solomon thought he knew better than God and acted on his own feelings and desires. He felt that if he had princesses of the neighbouring countries as his wives, that their fathers would not come to war against him. But these young women came from pagan backgrounds, and as he listened to them, they gradually wore him down from his belief in the one true God Who had given him all that he had. He felt he had done near enough to what God wanted. As a result of trying to please his many wives, he even got far enough away from God to make the idols that they wanted. Not only that, but he even placed them in God’s temple that he had built! Solomon was near enough, but not good enough; he had chosen what was good, but not what was best!
We have to be so careful that we don’t wander away from God’s instructions to mankind, or we too will miss out on not only what benefits us, but God’s best for us!