Then the Lord raised up against Solomon an adversary, Hadad the Edomite…And God raised up against Solomon another adversary, Rezon son of Eliada…1 Kings 11:14, 23

We get to see a very different side of God in this passage. Generally, we tend to think that the opposition we face in life is entirely of the Devil's doing! Not so. Twice within a dozen verses God raised up an adversary against the King of Israel, Solomon. Solomon's heart had turned away from God and the anger of the Lord burned against him (1 Kings 11:9).

God had given Solomon great wisdom and he had squandered it. He married many foreign women and they had led him astray with their foreign gods. Here is a man who was seeking, searching for the truth, trying to fill his void. He had it all. And he had experienced God in a great way. But the Scriptures tell us that Solomon had done evil in the eyes of the Lord (1 Kings 11:6). You still can't help shake the nagging feeling that God was trying to tell Solomon something very important. There was still hope for Solomon.

God is still in the business of trying to shake us and wake us. His methods are often unconventional, and He can deploy any means at his disposal (which happens to be the entire creation) to get us to open our eyes. God has not written any of us off.