Scripture Daily

Context No. 1394 of 4322 · 1 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

1 Chronicles 17:1-6: in context

1When David was living in his house, David said to Nathan the prophet, “Behold, I live in a cedar house, but the ark of the LORD’s covenant is in a tent.” 2Nathan said to David, “Do all that is in your heart; for God is with you.” 3That same night, the word of God came to Nathan, saying, 4“Go and tell David my servant, ‘The LORD says, “You shall not build me a house to dwell in; 5for I have not lived in a house since the day that I brought up Israel to this day, but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tent to another. 6In all places in which I have walked with all Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to be shepherd of my people, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’”’

Settled at last in his own house of cedar, David is troubled that he lives in such comfort while the ark of God's covenant sits in a tent. He tells Nathan the prophet of his desire to build God a house, and Nathan, sure this is good, tells him to do all that is in his heart, for God is with him. But that night the word of God comes to Nathan with a different answer: tell David he shall not build me a house. I have not lived in a house since I brought Israel up, God says; I have moved from tent to tent, and never once did I ask any of Israel's leaders, why have you not built me a house of cedar?

David's desire was good, born of love and a sense of the fitness of things; it seemed obviously right that God should not dwell in a tent while the king lived in cedar. Nathan agreed at once, and we would have too. Yet God's answer is a gentle correction: I never asked for this. God had been content to move with his people from tent to tent, dwelling among them as they journeyed, never once demanding a grand house of cedar. He was not impressed by the scale of the building David wanted to raise, because what he had always wanted was to be with his people, not to be housed in splendor. There is something worth learning here about our well-meant plans to do great things for God. It is possible to conceive a grand project out of genuine devotion, to be sure it is what God wants, to have even a prophet's initial blessing on it, and still to find that it is not what God actually asked. God is not as impressed by our grand structures and ambitious undertakings as we are; often what he wants is simpler and closer, to walk with his people, to dwell among them, to be wanted for himself rather than honored with a building. Our zeal to do something impressive for God is not always the same as doing what he asks. Sometimes the truer devotion is to ask what he wants rather than to assume our own grand plan must be it.

Do I assume that my grand, ambitious plan to do something for God must be what he wants, or do I ask what he actually asks, remembering that he valued walking with his people over a house of cedar he never requested?

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