1 Chronicles 21
Part II
Which is better — to be in fear or to be safe? Most people would argue safe. They point to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and say things like, “We advance as a society, if we are safe”. These days the parting phrase ‘stay safe’ is on everyone’s lips. And FDR’s famous line, “the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” just feels good, doesn’t it? The problem is God disagrees with all of them. King David learned this lesson personally.
In the first half of this story, we see how God impacts His people on a corporate level. But in the second half, God gets personal. He sends a vision to David of an angel of death standing between heaven and earth, the angel’s sword drawn over Jerusalem. David is commanded to go to a threshing floor, buy it with his own money, and give a sacrifice to God. The owner, Ornan, offers to give it to him, but David refuses and instead pays an exorbitant fee. After making the appropriate offerings the angel returns his sword to the sheath. Interestingly, the story ends not with David being happy to have saved a bunch of lives, but instead refusing to go near the presence of God.
David literally had the fear of the Lord put into him. This fear was missing from him earlier, when he commanded the census be taken of Israel and it cost him dearly. David had not realized how dangerous God could be. He had turned God into the lamb version of Christ. You know him, “nice guy” Jesus who loves everyone and everything. Completely ignoring the Lion of Judah, who refuses to give an inch of righteousness. Nothing about God is safe, He makes no promises to be safe and its not really in His “DNA”. Instinctively, we don’t like this. But He is good and fear is an appropriate feeling when dealing with God’s goodness. Fear keeps us on our guard, it heightens our senses, it makes us forget everything superfluous. Fear makes us listen. Fear makes us move!
Conversely, safe makes you stay put. Safe homes shelter you from the storm. Safe jobs keep you from looking for the next one. Safe keep us from growing. We sit in safe’s inviting embrace and are happy, like a child not wanting to change a diaper. It may smell bad, but it’s mine and it’s warm.
God wants us to grow. More than anything, He wants us to grow in a relationship with Him. Our greatest fear and the greatest movement should be in our dealings with Him. Our safety is something He cannot abide. He went to great lengths to make David move. Embrace a fear of the Lord and everything else will start moving in your life.
Dad Devotional 