Letting Go
16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, “My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.
19 “During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son–and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”
22 The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”
But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.
23 The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.'”
24 Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
26 The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”
But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”
27 Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”
28 When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice. (1 Kings 3:16-28)

Solomon asked for a discerning heart “discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong” (verse 9). He showed that God had given him a deep understanding of people. By making an apparently cruel decision, he forced each of the women to look into her heart to consider the cost of real love. The real mother had a love that was willing to accept a heavy price, even letting go of her child, while the other women had no real love and so was willing to let the child die.
Sometimes love is holding on, but sometimes it is letting go. In a marriage, people promise to hold on to love even through sickness or difficult times. With a child, however, there must be a time to let go as the child grows to begin his or her own life.
Do we love God? If we love God, then there are some things that we are called to let go of and other things that we are called to hold on to. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

Prayer:
• How much do you love God? What things is He calling you to let go of, no matter how important they seem to you now? What things is He calling you to hold on to?