Context No. 3965 of 4322 · 1 Kings

1 Kings 8:17-21: in context

17“Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. 18But the LORD said to David my father, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart. 19Nevertheless, you shall not build the house; but your son who shall come out of your body, he shall build the house for my name.’ 20The LORD has established his word that he spoke; for I have risen up in the place of David my father, and I sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised, and have built the house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. 21There I have set a place for the ark, in which is the LORD’s covenant, which he made with our fathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

As Solomon dedicates the temple, he recalls a tender exchange. His father David had longed to build a house for the LORD, and had set his heart on it. But God told David he would not be the one to build it; that task would fall to his son. And yet God's word to David was gracious: you did well that it was in your heart to build a house for my name.

God did not rebuke David for wanting to do what he was not permitted to do; he commended the desire even while assigning the work to another. There is something comforting here about how God regards the desires of our hearts to serve him. David wanted to build the temple and never got to; the actual construction was Solomon's. But David's desire was not wasted or dismissed; God honored the heart behind it. Sometimes we long to do something for God that, for reasons of his own, we are not the ones to accomplish. It may fall to another, or to a later generation. But the desire to serve him, the heart set on his glory, is precious to God even when we do not get to see the work completed by our own hands.

When I long to do something for God that I am not the one to accomplish, can I trust that he honors the desire of my heart, the good it was in my heart to do, even when the work itself falls to another?

Sources

1 Kings 8:18: "Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart."
1 Kings 8:19: "Nevertheless, you shall not build the house; but your son who shall come out of your body, he shall build the house for my name."
1 Chronicles 28:3: "But God said to me, You shall not build a house for my name, because you are a man of war."