God's Glory And Not Our Own

Tonight I stayed with the adults while Shelley and Angie took the kids. We had Chris with us again this week. We have enjoyed getting to know him.

In the adult class, we studied David and how he wanted to build a temple. He was distressed because he lived in such a mansion and the place of worship that held the Ark of the Covenant was still in a tent. He wanted to build a nice place of worship for the people of God, but God had different plans. He didn't allow David to build the temple because he had been a man of war. There are differing opinions on why this disqualified him, but one opinion that I had never heard before was that because he was a man of war he had brought lots of attention to himself. He used to be compared to Saul and they would say, "Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his tens of thousands." He was glorified for his skills of war, and God did not want the temple to bring glory to David, but to himself. Despite all this, David did not despair and give up. He didn't say "well, fine then, I'll just quit working for God if he doesn't want what I want to offer." He instead starting preparing for his son to build the temple. He drew up plans and gathered massive amounts of building supplies. He involved the entire nation and it became a joint effort to build the temple. Even though David's dreams were crushed, he continued to serve God and work for Him. We must do the same. If God chooses to take our lives down a road we don't want to travel, we must still serve Him. Just remember that God's plan is bigger than you are.