“Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you.”
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Especially coming
from a prophet of God. Normally I’d take Nathan’s advice to the bank. Had I been in King David’s
shoes, I’d have gotten cracking on my temple building project post-haste.
Problem is, the prophet was wrong.
Evidence Very Slightly Misinterpreted
Now, Nathan wasn’t wrong about God being
with King David. God says so himself: “I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you.” No, that part he totally nailed.
It was the conclusion Nathan drew from
the plain evidence of God’s favor in David’s life that turned out to be
erroneous. David might have been a good man, even a very good man in many ways, walking characteristically in the ways
of God. But it does not necessarily follow that any old idea that might have popped
into David’s mind was de facto the will of God.
This one wasn’t. It was not God’s plan for
David to build him a house. Sometimes the good guys get it wrong.
A Good Man, Not Quite Right for the Job
Nothing wrong with houses. God had never
had one before, but he was more than content to dwell in the one Solomon would eventually build
for him. Nothing wrong with David, for the most part. In fact, God was happy to build David a house instead. It simply was not yet God’s time and, more importantly, David was not
the man God had chosen to do the job.
Without being unnecessarily dramatic about
it, we should point out that Nathan the prophet fell down on the job here. No
harm done, happily — God stepped in and straightened him out the very same
night. But real prophets speak God’s words, not their own opinion,
learned though it may be. Nathan had stepped off the reservation for a moment
and given uncharacteristically poor guidance to his king.
Take It to the Lord in Prayer
It’s just a few verses of Bible history,
but doesn’t it remind us of the necessity to be continually in prayer? To take
every decision before the Lord and give him opportunity to weigh in on our
plans? Not to charge off doing things — even very good,
potentially Christ-honoring things — without first committing our way to him?
I’ll be honest: sometimes I have found
myself thinking uncharitable thoughts about those crusty old Christians we all
know whose first reaction to a great new idea is “Let’s just pray about that
for a while”. They almost seem to me to be a little bit slow off the mark, even
obstructionist. And it’s not impossible, I suppose, that one or two of them may
simply do it reflexively, or worse, to impress us with their piety.
On the other hand, what if they’re just
doing what Nathan failed to do here? Which is better: to charge off on our
own and find out later we’ve gone in entirely the wrong direction, or to wait
on the Lord for a few days or weeks so that we can act (or not act, as the case
may be) in confidence?
Silly question, right?
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