I used to go on a lot of Habitat for Humanity trips, especially during college, and I frequently ended up on job sites where we had to build a house from the ground up. We framed walls, put trusses up, put the roof decking up, and shingled the roof. Over the years, I would learn a little more about building a house. Building a house is really tricky. If you are a half inch off on a line it could wreck the whole job. For a guy like me, a half inch does not seem like a whole lot, but in the building trade it can equate to disaster. I remember on one trip, we were following the directions of a volunteer on how to build the framing for the house and the gentlemen supervising the job did not really know what he was doing. We put in a half day of work on it and the real site supervisor came on the scene and told us to rip everything out! We were off two inches! Ahhhh! Needless to say, that guy was not directing anymore work for the rest of the week.
David, in 2 Samuel 7:1-14, thought he knew what he was doing when he tried to build a house for God. God had been “dwelling” in a tent while the Israelites were in the wilderness. This was a great set up for God’s people because where ever they went they had a portable church that they could set up. After David builds a great house for himself, he thinks that God requires a better house than a tent! David might have been feeling guilty about how he was in a palace and God was in a ratty old tent. David tells Nathan that God deserves a house (temple) and David was going to build it. Great idea, huh? Wrong. God tells Nathan that if God wanted a house he would build one. Nathan passes this message along to David with additional information: David’s descendants (Solomon) would build God’s temple, not David.
As Christians, there are times when we think we have a great idea and we move on it. We think of better ways to run an organization or a better way to do something and we want to act on it. We pray about it, we talk about it, and we think about. It seems like a good idea and it would work, but is it what God wants? Discerning what direction to take in life is a difficult task. Often, Christian’s talk about “God’s will for their life”, but do not really know what it means. Christians think that there is this map of their life that God has planed out and they must figure out the map or be lost. And, there is a mystery to be solved because God is constantly hiding the future from them.
If David taught us anything it is that if God wants to do something it will happen. When God wants to build a church in (pick a city) it will happen. If God does not want to build a church in (pick a city) it will not happen. God knows what God is doing. David thought it was a good idea to build, but it was not the right time. God has a tendency to open and close doors in our lives. Sometimes we wish God would communicate to us like he did with his prophets and kings. We want God to tell us which direction to take. We get frustrated because we want to know “God’s Will for our life”.
What if God’s will was for us to discover, struggle, and figure out things for ourselves? It is not a mystery, but a journey. God’s will for us is about a journey. God knew that David was going to try to build a temple for God, but God did not allow it. Why? God wanted David to learn about going in the wrong direction. It was a teachable moment. God’s willed that David would figure it out, but David did not. See, there is a difference between God willing us to be faithful, good, and loving and God’s foreknowledge. Christians often feel that they have to figure out God’s foreknowledge for their lives. They feel like they have to figure all of these predetermined events.
For David, he thought he was doing the right thing… he thought he was doing God’s will. That is the journey: exploring God’s desire in our lives instead of trying to figure out predetermined events. Sometimes it is time to go, build, and serve and other times it is time for prayer, reflection, and discernment. Sometimes we need to go in the wrong direction (e.g. take the wrong job, fail at a ministry, etc…) to know where the right direction is (take the right job, start a new ministry else where, etc…). David figured that out. He learned that he need to take a chance so that he could be led to do the right thing at the right time. When God builds, we work but it going to be on God’s terms. And that is a good thing. We must learn from our successes and failures because that is a part of God’s will: learning and learning how to build God’s way.
Pentecost 7b
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