A Revelation of David's

Then David again gathered all the elite troops in Israel, 30,000 in all. ² He led them to Baalah of Judah to bring back the Ark of God, which bears the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, who is enthroned between the cherubim. ³ They placed the Ark of God on a new cart and brought it from Abinadab’s house, which was on a hill. Uzzah and Ahio, Abinadab’s sons, were guiding the cart as it left the house, ⁴ carrying the Ark of God. Ahio walked in front of the Ark. ⁵ David and all the people of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, singing songs and playing all kinds of musical instruments—lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals.
⁶ But when they arrived at the threshing floor of Nacon, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand and steadied the Ark of God. ⁷ Then the Lord’s anger was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him dead because of this. So Uzzah died right there beside the Ark of God.
⁸ David was angry because the Lord’s anger had burst out against Uzzah. He named that place Perez-uzzah (which means “to burst out against Uzzah”), as it is still called today.
⁹ David was now afraid of the Lord, and he asked, “How can I ever bring the Ark of the Lord back into my care?” ¹⁰ So David decided not to move the Ark of the Lord into the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-edom of Gath. ¹¹ The Ark of the Lord remained there in Obed-edom’s house for three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and his entire household.
¹² Then King David was told, “The Lord has blessed Obed-edom’s household and everything he has because of the Ark of God.” So David went there and brought the Ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the City of David with a great celebration. ¹³ After the men who were carrying the Ark of the Lord had gone six steps, David sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. ¹⁴ And David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment. ¹⁵ So David and all the people of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and the blowing of rams’ horns.

 ―2 Samuel 6:1-15

Wow... there's so much here...
I've had this story in my bible memory banks for a long time. When I first read it, I was struck with confusion. "God, I don't understand.... You're a God of love. Why would You not show mercy to Uzzah? Sure, he disobeyed your holy law that said that even those specific Levites designated to handle the ark and other holy materials were never to directly touch them. But his heart seemed to be in the right place..." Confusion can sometimes be the best grounds for growth because, at times, the LORD will tear down old thoughts to build up new ones. In my case, my perceptions of God were being challenged. Over time I had no choice but to accept that this is who the LORD is. "It's in His word. It's what He did. Yes, He is love, but He is also holy and to be respected. And even if the sons of Abinadab were set apart by the LORD to do this type of holy work this close to the LORD's presence, even they had restrictions. And point blank, Uzzah didn't follow them." What do we do when God does something we don't expect Him to do? Do we honor it? Do we ask Him about it? Do we pretend like it never happened? Or do we hold it against Him?

How did David react to this?
He reacted similarly to the way most of us would initially. The text says two things. It says he was angry which can be translated as furious, kindled, or heated. It also says he was afraid which can be translated as in awe, reverencing, or respecting. After reading this passage recently, I got some new revelation about how David handled things afterward that we can learn a lot from.

For his entire life David knew the LORD to be a God of protection. 
God protects His people. God protected the Israelites through David when battling Goliath who defied the "armies of the living God." God protected David while he was on the run from the kingdom of Saul. David knew God as protector, so seeing Uzzah perish at the hand of the LORD's judgment may have shaken this foundation of his understanding. While the truth of God "the protector" never stopped being true, what David had not seen yet was how God holds His holy people Israel accountable to a holy standard (at this time the law of Moses). It was not until David's promotion to king that he began to see these new facets of God that would test him and stretch his perception.

So after the event, David takes the Ark of the LORD to the house of Obed-edom of Gath saying "How can I ever bring the Ark of the Lord back into my care?" But while God's presence rests on the Ark there, God blesses Obed-edom's house. The report David receives about the LORD blessing Obed-edom's house after these 3 months must have reaffirmed to him who he knew his God to be before the incident with Uzzah. David then takes the Ark back with rejoicing just as before, but this time there were some differences. The main thing to note here is that David did not hold so tightly onto what he knew before that he could not embrace the new. He expressed his new reverence for God by:

• having the men of Israel praise specifically "with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet" instead of "all kinds of instruments"
• having the men of Israel sacrifice bulls and calves after six steps of carrying the Ark
• wearing a linen ephod (a priestly garment)

And at the end of the day this new reverence of God blessed his praise. Christians really like that quote that says we should "dance like David danced" when in the presence of the LORD. Well, it turns out that what elevated his praise to that level was what he learned that day at "Perez-uzzah."

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

I used to wonder why God would refer to himself as "the God of Jacob" or "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"... I mean I guess I knew the bible history behind it, but it always seemed weird for Him to say that generations later. But I'm realizing that that was the whole point.

He was Creator and Sustainer of your father's generation, and HIS father's generation, and HIS father's generation.
He was faithful to your father's generation, and HIS father's generation, and HIS father's generation.
He showed mercy to your father's generation, and His father's generation, and HIS father's generation.

He IS.

He always will BE.

He stands apart from His creation called time, yet He chooses to be a part of it.

He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Intercession

"We love Him because He first loved us."

―1 John 4:19

The New International Version puts it like this... "We love because He first loved us."

When I started thinking of prayer through this lens, some things started to click. The Lord reminded me that Jesus is always interceding for us.

"Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them."

―Hebrews 7:25

"Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

―Romans 8:26-28

It's funny, I've always heard verse 28 by itself, and trust me that verse is quite impactful on it's own. But when the context of verse 27 comes before it, it gives a fuller picture of why I can truly have confidence in this promise. "The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James 5:16b), so when the Spirit of Jesus, the righteousness of God, intercedes for us according to the will of God we can be pretty sure that it's effective. Jesus has never once prayed a prayer that has not been answered.  He is the Word. He is the embodiment of the very words of God that the worlds were framed by in the beginning (Hebrews 11:3). "All things were made through Him [the Word], and without Him nothing was made that was made" (John 1:3). What He says becomes reality because He only speaks out of the authority of the sovereign Father. The Spirit, then acts out the spoken Word and manifests it in the earth with power.

The confidence in my calling can now rise when I remember that the Son of God is always making intercession for the calling of the body of Christ. "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling" (Ephesians 4:4). Yes! It is most definitely true that "He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

Whew!!...

With that said, how does this affect how I pray for others?
Well for one, I can pray from a place of abundance instead of a place of lack. I know that "the LORD will perfect that which concerns me" and that You will not "forsake the works of Your hands" because "Your mercy, O LORD, endures forever"(Psalm 138:8). It frees me to put my energy into serving the body rather than serving myself because I know He's already got me covered.

Also, because I know that Jesus is interceding for us already, it makes pretty good sense to ask Him how and what to pray for others. This way I'm not alone in prayer, I'm actually partnering with God the Son in prayer.

Another thing personally that I may have been trying to avoid is asking God for, and operating in the gift of tongues for private and personal edification (1 Corinthians 14:1-5), as well as asking for the interpretation when interceding for others. I don't usually go down this road because, like many of us, my faith upbringing has always been for the most part more "conservative" than "charismatic." And of course we've all seen the gift of tongues misused and exploited, so naturally it's damaged our belief in it's biblical application. But I know I can't deny that in it's genuine form, it is a good thing (I know not everyone believes that the gift of tongues is still functioning today. You don't have to agree and at the end of the day this is my personal blog. If you do disagree, take the time to practice brotherly love haha).

Well that's it for now


Grace and Peace,

Ya boi Thaddeus