Wednesday ......

Today is Wednesday, January 29, 2014.

Good Morning.

A thought for the day:
“If you build it, they will come.”


The Church’s 1 reading for today: 2 Samuel chapter 7 verses 4-17

That night the LORD spoke to Nathan and said:
“Go, tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD:
Should you build me a house to dwell in?
I have not dwelt in a house
from the day on which I led the children of Israel
out of Egypt to the present,
but I have been going about in a tent under cloth.
In all my wanderings everywhere among the children of Israel,
did I ever utter a word to any one of the judges
whom I charged to tend my people Israel, to ask:
Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’

“Now then, speak thus to my servant David,
‘The LORD of hosts has this to say:
It was I who took you from the pasture
and from the care of the flock
to be commander of my people Israel.
I have been with you wherever you went,
and I have destroyed all your enemies before you.
And I will make you famous like the great ones of the earth.
I will fix a place for my people Israel;
I will plant them so that they may dwell in their place
without further disturbance.
Neither shall the wicked continue to afflict them as they did of old,
since the time I first appointed judges over my people Israel.
I will give you rest from all your enemies.
The LORD also reveals to you that he will establish a house for you.
And when your time comes and you rest with your ancestors,
I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his Kingdom firm.
It is he who shall build a house for my name.
And I will make his royal throne firm forever.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
And if he does wrong,
I will correct him with the rod of men
and with human chastisements;
but I will not withdraw my favor from him
as I withdrew it from your predecessor Saul,
whom I removed from my presence.
Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me;
your throne shall stand firm forever.’”

Nathan reported all these words and this entire vision to David.

* * *
There is an old story about a beautiful Emperor moth. This Emperor moth was really not yet free, but was tucked away in a cocoon just waiting to be released. As this particular emperor moth was struggling to get through the narrow neck of the cocoon, a boy was intently observing it. As the moth struggled to release himself from the cocoon, the boy felt the moth would never make it out of the cocoon. As the struggle went on for several hours, the boy became increasingly impatient. He thought to himself, "maybe there is something wrong." He decided to take matters into his own hands, and with a pair of scissors the boy gently snipped the threads around the opening of the cocoon to make it easier for the moth to emerge. As soon as the threads were snipped, the moth crawled out; however, as it did, it dropped behind it an ugly, distended, shriveled wing which was useless. The exercise the moth would have gotten in the struggle would have animated its wings.
In the Old Testament Scripture for today, David is much like the little boy who snipped away at the Emperor moth's cocoon. For the first time since ascending the throne, David is in a position to snip the cocoon from which he had been emerging.
David is established in his new house and is secure from his notorious Philistine enemies. No doubt David has become bored and wants to emerge from the cocoon in which God has placed him. In so doing, he focuses on himself and his own insecurities. In this mind set, David decides that he must build God a house. In his own mind he has already said, "Yes," to his idea.
But that is not what God desires for David.
You ever find your desires for yourself in contradiction to God’s desire for you?

God bless,
Father Pat



.