Prepare the Way

I was reading 1 Chronicles 22 today and was really impressed by David's heart.

God has set a new task before his people: to build a temple.

This is a job that David desperately wants; just like most of us would. This is a job that will be remembered till the end of the Earth. However, God says 'David, you have shed too much blood. I will use your son instead of you." How many of us would fly off the handle at this point? It's one thing to use someone else, it's another thing to use someone so close to us. So what does David, the 'man after God's own heart', do?

So David gave orders to assemble the aliens living in Israel, and from among them he appointed stonecutters to prepare dressed stone for building the house of God. He provided a large amount of iron to make nails for the doors of the gateways and for the fittings, and more bronze than could be weighed. He also provided more cedar logs than could be counted, for the Sidonians and Tyrians had brought large numbers of them to David. Then David ordered all the leaders of Israel to help his son Solomon. He said to them, "Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the LORD your God. Begin to build the sanctuary of the LORD God, so that you may bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD and the sacred articles belonging to God into the temple that will be built for the Name of the LORD."

For a man on his deathbed, David goes out of his way to help a man who, by every human account, he should have been jealous of. Today, we should realize that God's plan is perfect and he will use us to benefit that plan. Whether we are meant to plant the seeds or to harvest them, let His will be done.