Equally Yoked

And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God… - 1 Kings 10: 3-4

Today’s Reading: 1 King 10-11; Luke 21: 20-38

When I was growing up my Dad used to always talk about the perils of being unequally yoked.

What the heck does that mean?

Well here’s the literal imagery. Imagine you have two horses or oxen (pick your beast of burden) attached to a yoke. Together they are supposed to pull a plow in a straight line so that there will be a nice straight path plant the seeds.

But what happens if the ox on the left is weak?

That ox will slow down; and will pull both oxen to the left. If this is allowed to remain unchecked you can imagine what might happen. The two oxen will drift more and more to the left until they either stop, end up going back where they started or someone corrects them.

The weak always pull the strong towards them until both are off the path.

This is what happened with Solomon. He was blessed with a more decadent lifestyle than I can even hope to imagine. But as a result he invited things in his life that weighed him down (in his case 700 wives and 300 concubines!).

Man… He must have been like this dude.

Holla holla holla atcha.

In his effort to please them he built shrines to their gods all throughout Israel.

God was none too pleased.

So this is another food for thought moment. What are the times in your life where you have allowed someone close to you to derail your dream? How did you handle it? Have you handled it?

When it comes down to doing the work required in fulfilling our purpose, we need to make sure that the closest folks to us are going in a similar direction, have the same discipline, and can help us when we fall.

We need to make sure we are equally yoked.

The longer these relationships are one sided the further we are pulled away from the right path by the dead weight that these folks bring.