Pressing the Pause

Sometimes in life, we need to pause from all of our doings – our striving, our pursuing, our grinding, and simply just be. We need times in our rhythms to realign our hearts and our work to our Maker—the One who sustains us, refreshes our soul and whose love never fails. This practice is helpful in our generosity journeys too. In our pursuit to be more generous, sometimes we need to reflect on God’s amazing generosity to us and get more in sync with him, rhyming our thoughts with his. Let’s do that together, right now.

Look at 1 Chronicles 17. In this passage, David is blown away and humbled by the realization that God has given him so much but has asked and received so little in return. In reflecting on this with his advisor, Nathan the Prophet, David says, “Behold, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent,” (1 Chronicles 17:1).

The rest of the chapter recounts all that God had done for David from elevating him as a lowly shepherd to a king, to conquering enemies and opposing kingdoms, to promising him a family line of rulers. Yet in all of this, while David was blessed by God’s generous love, God’s presence remained in a tent! David recognized this when pausing and reflecting upon God and felt guilty about this reality while he was living in a beautiful palace.

So David decided to build a Temple for God. His heart was in a good place, to give what he believed God deserved. Yet radically, God responded to David’s intent by saying he didn’t need a house for his presence. Instead, the Lord said to David in 1 Chronicles 17:8:

I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.

Wow! David is caught off guard and completely humbled by God’s gesture. He’s in awe of God’s amazing generosity, once again. Here David was trying to give back, and God graciously declined and instead promised a home for his people Israel. David responded the only way he could—humbling himself, praising God and recognizing God’s blessings, as in 1 Chronicles 17:16-17:

Who am I, Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, my God, you have spoken about the future of the house of your servant. You, Lord God, have looked on me as though I were the most exalted of men.

What an incredible story. It teaches us that when we pause and reflect on God’s generosity to us, we will find him to be more generous than we even thought. This is good. The more we can become aware of God’s generosity to us, the more generous we will be. This is evident in the last part of David’s life if we track his story through the rest of 1 Chronicles. In the end, after God consented to the building of the temple by David’s son Solomon, David gave from his personal fortune and encouraged others to follow his example. And the magnificent temple of God was built by voluntary gifts because of his example of generosity. And there’s more, we get a treasure of truth in his final public prayer on earth:

“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” -1 Chronicles 29:14

Friends, keep pressing the pause.