Reigning

The books of Kings have always thrilled me, and yet leaves lingering questions in my own mind of how long I will be able to serve the Lord as He has called. In Kings (both books) the times of the king's reigns are listed, some reigned many years, but many reigned just a few years. The reasoning behind the length of their reigns were: they didn't follow the Lords commandments; they didn't follow the Lord like David did; they were more wicked than any other king before them; and, still others, all that was stated was the year or two they reigned. That's a sobering thought. How long will our reign be? Will there be any more said of us other than the year or two we served?
1 Kings 3:3 says "now Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places." Wow, he loved the Lord...except. I was researching the gods to which Solomon sacrificed, and was intrigued by the name of one god, Molek. The Hebrew origin of the word was a combination of "mlk" meaning king, and "boshet" meaning shame (Holman Bible Dictionary paraphrased)...how ironic.
I recently had a dream where I was fighting demonic beings, probably from studying these gods. Two of them explained how they worked, starting at the feet where we would feel the most pain being bothered by this idol until we tolerated it enough to allow it to move on up. They said by the time they reached the head, they would no longer be wrestled with and the people would even be enticed by the feeling of sin, because sin had so engulfed the people that anything is okay. I continued to fight them the whole time, and tried to wake up others around me, but they wouldn't get up. There was so much more to the dream, but when I woke up, I realized how true it was. Are we any different than Solomon...loving the Lord...except?
One more thing and I'll hop off my soap box. Jeroboam was king after Solomon, he was given 11 of the 12 tribes of Israel to reign over, all he had to do was serve the Lord whole hearted; but, he was so afraid of losing his people that he set up gods for them, made priests that had no business being priests. It was a free for all, no rules, a do what you want sort of thing. It was another downfall for the people of Israel. It was fixable with just the turning of the heart back toward the Lord.
I don't know about you, but if I lose all my friends, I will serve Him without exception. It won't be pretty, and people will hate me for speaking the truth, but what have I to lose? In the end, maybe I'll have a word or two beyond my years of serving. :)