Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 44 · February 13
Who Am I
“Then went king David in, and sat before the LORD, and he said, Who am I, O Lord GOD? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?”
Lord God, we have brought You our best plans and called the bringing devotion: a building fund, a year away in service, a move. Then You said no. It hurt more than the plan deserved, because somewhere along the way our love for You got mixed into it, and we cannot pull the two apart again.
David wanted to build You a house. "I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains." Nathan the prophet told him to go ahead, and that same night You sent Nathan back to take it back: "Shalt thou build me an house for me to dwell in?" Then You turned the word around: "the LORD telleth thee that he will make thee an house." In that one chapter the word house means three things: a palace, a temple, and a family line. You turned down the house David wanted to build for You, and You promised to build a house for him.
What David did next, we have hardly ever done. "Then went king David in, and sat before the LORD." He simply sat down in Your presence. And what he said had nothing to do with the building: "Who am I, O Lord GOD? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?" Hitherto means this far. He was looking back down the road to the pastures where You found him, which You had just made a point of naming: "I took thee from the sheepcote, from following the sheep."
We do not sit. We carry the refusal away and work on it, then bring it back rewritten and call that persistence. David said, "And what can David say more unto thee? for thou, Lord GOD, knowest thy servant." He admitted he had run out of words, and he rested on the fact that You knew him.
In this chapter You gave David no reason why the temple would be built by a son not yet born, and he sat before You anyway. Our no has come without a reason too. We would rather sit with it in front of You than carry it off and be right somewhere else. You know Your servants, and that is enough for us to be still.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 44 is The Years the Locust Ate (Joel 2:25).