What Will You Ask For?

1 Kings 3:9 — "So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?"

What would you do if God appeared before you and said: "Ask for whatever you want me to give you"? This is not imagination. It actually happened. And the answer one young king gave to that question is the climax of every passage we have read today.

Look at Psalm 83. Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, Assyria — the nations surrounding God's people conspire together: "Come, let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel's name is remembered no more." This was the world surrounding Solomon as he took the throne. And the threats were not only external. In 1 Kings 2, the danger came from within too — Adonijah scheming for the throne, Joab harbouring rebellion, Shimei carrying a curse.

Yet 1 Chronicles 29:23-25 and 2 Chronicles 1:1 answer all of this in a single sentence: "Solomon son of David established himself firmly over his kingdom, for the LORD his God was with him and made him exceedingly great." Surrounded by enemies on every side, with rebellion stirring within — when God is present, the throne does not fall. Solomon's kingdom was firmly established not because of his political skill. It was because the LORD his God was with him.

Here is something striking. Before Solomon asked for anything, he first went up to Gibeon. Look at this scene, recorded in both 1 Kings 3 and 2 Chronicles 1. At Gibeon, Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings. One thousand. Before asking God for anything, he first gave everything.

This is the order of prayer. First, lay everything before God. Not approaching him as a vending machine to fill our needs, but prostrating ourselves before his glory first. Solomon's thousand offerings are not about the number. They are about posture. "Lord, I give first. Then I ask." God appeared to Solomon at Gibeon because Solomon had come before him with that extravagant devotion.

That night, God appeared in a dream: "Ask for whatever you want me to give you." This is the scene in 2 Chronicles 1:7 and 1 Kings 3:5. The God who governs the entire universe asks a young king: ask for anything. And before this question, there are three things Solomon did not ask for. Long life. Wealth. The death of his enemies. 1 Kings 3:11 states this explicitly. He asked for none of these.

So what did he ask for? "Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong." And before this request, Solomon defines himself in these words: "I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties." The Hebrew is even more striking: naar katon (נַעַר קָטֹן) — a small, little child. The king of all Israel calls himself a little child. This is the secret of Solomon's greatness.

He did not ask for himself. He asked for the sake of God's people. He asked not for long life but for wisdom; not for riches but for discernment. And God gave him everything he had not asked for as well. This is the paradox. The one who does not ask for himself receives the most abundantly.

Jesus said in Matthew 12:42: "One greater than Solomon is here." Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings and then asked for wisdom. But Jesus offered himself as the one, final, and perfect sacrifice. Solomon asked for wisdom for the sake of his people. But Jesus gave his very life for us without reservation. Colossians 2:3 declares: "In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The very wisdom Solomon sought is already given in full — in Jesus Christ.

Today God is asking you the same question: "Ask for whatever you want me to give you." What will you ask for? Hold your own prayers up against Solomon's and see what they reveal. What we pray for shows what we truly love. The one who asks not for themselves but for God's people, for God's glory — to that person, God will add even what they did not ask for.