Jump Start # 3011

1 Chronicles 28:19 “’All this,’ David said, ‘the Lord made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, all the details of this pattern.’”

Our verse comes late in David’s life. At the end of the next chapter he dies. God had been good to David. For decades God had delivered, blessed and forgiven David. The giant. King Saul. The Philistines. Absalom. So many victories. And, even when David stumbled, more than once, God picked him up. After all of this, it was within the heart of David to build a permanent place for the ark of the covenant. A permanent house for the Lord. No more tents. No more moving about. Established. Settled. Sure. However, David wasn’t the man to do this. There was a trail of blood on David’s hands. It would be Solomon who would build the temple. David made all the preparations. The materials were gathered. The project was funded. The workmen were lined up. In our times, the blueprints would have been made. The leaders would gather with silver shovels and the project would start. It was just a matter of time. David did all that he could, except actually build the tabernacle. He never lived to see the project completed.

And, this leads us to our thought today, disappointments. For David, it was a divine disappointment. God would not allow him to build the temple.

Now, some thoughts for us:

First, disappointments are a part of life. Some are big. Some are little. But they happen. As a child, you may have been to an amusement park with your family. Everyone was going to ride the big roller coaster. But there was a sign with a line drawn across it. You had to be taller than that line to ride the ride. You weren’t. Disappointment. In school, maybe you didn’t make the team, the choir or get a date. In college, you didn’t get the scholarship. As you get older, the disappointments continue. You didn’t get the loan. You didn’t get the job. You didn’t get the house. Someone you counted on as a friend, gossiped about you. A preacher you really liked moved.

When we are disappointed, we hurt. We feel discouraged.

Second, what we do with disappointments is a greater lesson for us. There is no getting around disappointments. They are going to happen. What do you do when they happen reveals what we are made up of. Do we get angry? Do we pout? Do we seek revenge? David wasn’t allowed to build the temple. What did he do? He could have piled tons and tons of dirt upon the location where the temple was to be built. He could have picked a fight and got all the people necessary to accomplish this so mad that they would have nothing to do with it. David could have made things hard for Solomon. But that wasn’t the character of David. He couldn’t build, so he supplied. He lined up workers. He got everything ready.

Now, maybe for some reason you cannot serve as a shepherd. You wanted to, but it is not going to happen. How do you handle all of this? Do you make life difficult for those who were appointed and you were not? Do you talk about them and ridicule them? Or, like a David, you do all that you can to support and help them in their work. Do you become their biggest defender and their greatest cheerleader?

Third, other people are watching you when you go through disappointments. Your family especially notices. You can be an example for them and help them as they go through disappointments or you can be such an embarrassment that even your faith is questioned. There are lessons to be learned in disappointments. Sometimes our divine disappointments come in the form of prayers answered “no.” How do we handle that? “No,” is an answer. It’s not the answer you want, but it is an answer. God sees things on a much larger scale than we do. He considers things from Heaven’s perspective. We look at things from our little spot in time. God sees into tomorrow. This is where our trust in the Lord comes to the surface. God knows what is best.

Fourth, the will of God must become our will. What God wants ought to be what we want. The temple was going to be built. That was the important aspect. It didn’t matter so much who built it. That’s how David saw it. The glory was for the Lord. If he couldn’t do it, then let someone else be the one. It wasn’t to be David’s temple, but God’s temple. And, that unselfish spirit helps us deal with our disappointments. Don’t fuss about who gets to lead singing in worship. It’s not a competition. The glory goes to the Lord.

Disappointments—we must learn to handle them without the disappointments dismantling us. Things break. People let you down. Your team loses. Flights are cancelled. Politicians forget their promises. You are overlooked. You can wear these as a badge and tell others about them, or you can get about doing what you can do.

David prepared and Solomon built.

Roger