An Understanding Heart: When Discernment Is More Than Being Smart
Solomon didn’t ask God to make him impressive. He asked God to make him accurate in his ruling.
“The way a leader judges God’s people reveals whether they are listening to culture, confidence, or Christ.”
Back again. In 1 Kings 3, Solomon asks for “an understanding heart to judge Your people and to discern between good and evil.” It’s a request that runs counter to how leadership usually works in our secular world.
What interests me about Solomon at the moment is that he is asking for a heart that listens or can assess properly during the heavy affairs of the people he will govern. If we were to peel back the layers of what an understanding heart is, we would learn that it isn’t about being soft, but more about being spiritually sharp in the right way.
The Hebrew idea behind “understanding” points to a heart that can hear. Hear language, core concerns, and sounds of the moment. I am imagining Solomon asking God to tune his inner life so he can catch what others miss. I think it is wise for us to pursue and model in our leadership.
How would we know the motives that exist beneath words, good and evil beneath appearance, or even what is true without the spirit of God leading our hearts? One could argue the street smarts that come from growing up fast, business tenure, relational wars, or surviving hard things, but that is not the divine level of discernment needed for God’s people. In our human brokenness, we still fail to stand close enough to God to see people the way He sees them.
That matters because leaders are constantly tempted to judge from the surface. In many cases, it is a misjudgment. Today, we call this stereotyping (a mistaken idea or belief many people have about a thing or group based on how they look on the outside, which may be untrue or only partly true). As I think on this more, I realize it is one of the biggest problems we face in terms of gospel unity, embracing and platforming diverse leadership, and more specifically, leading diverse people groups in the local church. It is hurting us more than it is helping us accomplish God’s mission individually and corporately. Sometimes, I wish we could be like Solomon and admit what we don’t know, so God can help us overcome those barriers.
The point I am making here is this: I don’t know whether Solomon knew better, but it was humble of him to ask God for the understanding to rule or judge rightly. Human eyes tend to misjudge.
What looks like strength can be insecurity.
What looks like opposition can be pain.
What looks like righteousness can be pride.
What looks like legacy can be ego.
What looks like reputation can be rejection.
What looks like love can be self-hatred.
Without God’s understanding heart, we will miss it every time. Now, I am hopeful because Solomon’s granted wisdom was always meant to help us see the past and to point us forward. Scripture keeps pressing the same pain point: humanity is horrible at defining good and evil on its own. From Eden onward, the issue is dependence on God’s spoken and established truth. When leaders decide good and evil without God, we always get it twisted. It’s playing out on a vast scale in our society. Pick any category (Economics, Immigration, Politics, Religion, Culture Wars, Violence, Humanity, etc).
“We need to know that God’s understanding heart teaches us how to use the power we have been endowed with, never to abuse it in realms we have not been granted dominion over.”
Moving along, Solomon’s prayer is powerful because it admits that moral clarity doesn’t originate in us. It descends from God and reached its fullness in Jesus Christ.
Jesus was discernment in flesh (John 1). He walked into crowds and immediately read hearts (John 2:24-25). He calls out religious leaders without hesitation and restores broken people without confusion. He never confused volume for authority or appearance for truth. Where others judge by the outside, Jesus spoke directly to the core of humanity (Matthew 5-7).
Even at the cross, human judgment declared Jesus guilty, dangerous, and expendable (Luke 23). Heaven showed Him righteous, obedient, and necessary (Philippians 2:5-10). The cross exposes the gap between human discernment and God’s will. Without God, we will call good evil and evil good. With Christ, that confusion is finally confronted as He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6)
What I am re-learning from Solomon on my spiritual leadership journey is this:
I can be experienced and still misjudge people.
I can be gifted and still miss what God is doing.
I can be loud, respected, and wrong.
I can give way to my default sin nature of performance and overlook God’s people.
What about you? Are you playing smart or allowing God to inculcate His heart of discernment in you?
Here is what I know: the way a leader judges God’s people reveals whether they are listening to culture, confidence, or Christ. My prayer is that God will slow His leaders down enough for us to listen, humble ourselves, and stay close enough to Him to borrow His sight. His people need Him, not us.
I hope this encourages you as much as it is encouraging me!
-BW