Then David said to all the assembly, “Now bless the LORD your God.” And all the assembly blessed the LORD, the God of their fathers, and bowed low and did homage to the LORD and to the king.” (1 Chronicles 29:20)

Connectedness. Spiritual heritage. Tradition. David instilled in God’s people, the nation of Israel, a deep sense of continuity with the faith of “their fathers.” That phrase refers to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the lineage which all Jews trace as theirs. David’s God was not a new invention, nor an evolution or refinement of a humanistic construct of deity, as some academics and “experts” in the history or sociology of religion would have us to believe. His faith, like Judeo-Christian theism today, was based on the belief in one and only one God, rooted in the earliest revelation of Yahweh God to the man Abraham. Monotheism, the belief in one God, is in fact ancient.

Under David’s leadership, God’s promises to bless Abraham—particularly by possession of a promised land—had finally come to fruition. David essentially handed to his son, Solomon, a nation completely at peace in the Promised Land; the promise of complete possession was fulfilled. Solomon, after being installed as king, acknowledged, “[T]he LORD my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune” (1 Kings 5:4). And David challenged the people to continue on the foundation, namely, to “bless the LORD your God,” showing their allegiance to the God of their fathers.

Why is this point important for David to make? Or for us today, for that matter? Human nature, fallen since the Garden of Eden, drifts from God. The sinister nature of our darkened souls, against all logic and reason, looks for something new to capture our imaginations, emotions and energies. David understood that security and peace can easily ebb away. Prosperity and faith don’t often mix well. Israel’s history bears this out.

Solomon began his reign well but showed signs of spiritual slippage early on by marrying foreign women and eventually falling headlong into their idolatry-laden influence, embracing idols—despite all of God’s abundant blessings. He lost his mooring, if not in the intellectual belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then in his moral disobedience to God’s law. Solomon wrote many of the biblical psalms and proverbs, and also the books of Ecclesiastes (the vanity of life under the sun) and the Song of Solomon (extolling love). But he ceased blessing the God of His fathers. The faith and humility he exhibited early in his life came to have little bearing in the outworking of his life, as he chased after new gods.

Lord, help me to grow in faith, the same faith as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.