Solomon - the Epic Entrepreneur

Two days ago, our first trailer, meaning more are coming, pulled into our driveway.  It's big!  31 ft.!  Last night we had an Airstream Marathon where we watched multiple videos of the transformation of several online just to give the kids a vision of victory.  We want them to see that we aren't the only ones out there who do stuff like this.  We watched one family in particular that even started their own Airstream renovation business, so who knows where this will go.

Normally we have a mild freak out where we think to ourselves "what have we done?"  followed by more panic, dread, fear and all those awful feelings that make you feel crazy, but this time we were mostly excited and wishing we could start right away.  We have no time to waste.  Winter is coming, although yesterday was 21 degrees which was almost hot, like a summer day.  So if winter is going to be mild like that, we might just get it done sooner than we think.  It looks like the second one will arrive this week sometime and then we're going to get started soon after that.  We really want to have multiple sites on the farm, all facing the sunset which is amazing here.  I often wished we had lived on the opposite side of the road as you can have a view of the lake, but now I'm so glad we're on this side.

We often call our ideas "crazy", but this week my husband said, "We have to stop saying that" and he's right.  We are now saying that our ideas are God-given and they are.  I was reading this week in 2 Chronicles chapter one about Solomon.  1 Chronicles ended with David dying, full of days, which sounded so positive even though the last half of his life had so much misery.  It gave me the sense that even with the misery, God had redeemed his bad choices, his trouble with his children and turned it for good in the end.  There were also Grand Opening celebrations as they anticipated the start of the building of the temple.  Then chapter one starts with Solomon as the new king.  Instead of going right into building he goes right into worship.  He gathers his assembly and it says he goes intentionally to worship God as his first act of worship.  He extravagantly sacrifices 1000 burnt offerings.  One commentary says that he does this to show how rich he is but to also show how much he wants to show everyone that it all comes from God.  The next scene is where God says to him in the night, "What do you want?"  Instead of asking for wealth or long life, he famously asks for wisdom.  This response pleases God and he is given wisdom as well as much wealth, fame and much  more.  I think everyone assumes that he automatically got money deposited in his account, but the next scene seems to reveal how it came about and this is where I was so excited and encouraged by what I read, the morning the Airstream was arriving.

This next scene then starts talking about all the things Solomon starts doing and, to me anyway, they sound a lot like entrepreneurial businesses.  He starts dealing with chariots and horsemen, silver and gold, as well as cedar.  He then starts importing horses from Egypt where his "horse traders" would "buy them from Kue for a price".  This was where I started getting excited as I read these verses.  Solomon was acting unusally clever and taking initiative in his businesses.  It went on...."They imported a chariot from Egypt....and a horse....."  So now he's importing horses and chariots - so interesting....Next it says, "Likewise - meaning, in addition to all these other things he was doing he also did this - through them these were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria." So cool - so he had a horse and chariot import/export business.  This just means so many other things.  He, therefore, must have had a horse breeding business as well as a chariot manufacturing business and all the trades involved with that.  And these would have been very important for war, so all the kings would have needed them.  He was a genius!  Or was he.....maybe this is the very way God answered his prayers, by giving Solomon these amazing answers to prayer, these amazing ideas.  Instead of dumping money in his account he gave him ideas!  Wisdom!  So exciting.  This is why we are no longer saying to each other or anyone else for that matter, "we're crazy".  No, we're not.  We're just thanking God for the ideas he gives us, the ability to carry out the ideas, the resources we have, the access to land.  God has placed us exactly where He wants us and we're just thanking God every day for placing us between Hittite kings and Syrian kings who will buy our horses and chariots that we are now making, such as Airstreams, wine, stained glass, etc.  Even yesterday, we prayed that we would have many wine sales, yet the income we made yesterday came from stained glass sales.  We did sell wine as it was a beautiful day, but we sold more in glass, equipment, and course related sales than we did in wine.  That was another genius idea RM had when he started the courses.  He had the foresight to realize his students would need tools and equipment, so he set up a "store" in the studio and unbelievably people buy from him because they are right there and he can direct them to what they need instead of them going to a different supplier.  It was "genius" except he can't take the credit - the ideas all come from God.  This is why we are going to church today again - to worship and sacrifice our 1000 burnt offerings, to thank Him for what he's doing in our lives.  We're just so excited.   

I'm fairly certain God showed me these verses for a reason on Friday.  If I had read them a year ago I don't think I would have been impacted by them in the same way.  It was so neat to read them "by coincidence" on the day the trailer was pulling in.  I think, ultimately, this was how Solomon was made wealthy, through work, through his visioning, through multiple businesses and, of course, all these ideas were from God.  Amazing.