1 Kings 11:4-13 / Mark 7:24-30
The gift of faith is a beautiful and also a powerful gift.
With faith, we will know who God is and His great love for us.
With faith, we will also see the wonders that God will work for us, especially in our time of need.
King Solomon knew who God is and he was also given the gift of wisdom.
But despite being blessed abundantly by God, king Solomon got swayed by his foreign wives.
He even worshipped their gods and offered sacrifice to those idols.
He lost his faith in God, and probably his wisdom too, and it had tragic consequences in the breaking up of the kingdom.
But in the gospel, it was a Syrophoenician woman who came up to Jesus and begged Jesus to deliver her daughter from an unclean spirit.
Even though Jesus tested her faith, that woman was steadfast and firm in her conviction that Jesus was the one who could cast out the evil from her daughter.
So it can be said that from the one who was expected to be faithful to God, that person did not live up to the faith.
From someone who did not belong to God’s chosen people, she had that sense of faith.
May we not take our faith for granted or we will lose it.
May our faith lead us to depend on God’s providence, and let us also share our faith with those who want to know more about Jesus.