A House Is Not A Home

Now when the king was settled in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, "See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent." Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you." But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the ... leaders ... saying, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?"

David wanted to build a brand spanking new house for God, and all of a sudden God says, No, I don’t want it?! Now what exactly was wrong with David’s building a house for God? Why would God forbid this man after His own heart?

God saw that what David was after was a monument to David. This house of God that David purposed to build; it wasn’t for God, it was for the king’s reputation. It might have had God’s name on it, but that was just a convenient cover-up; it was really all about David building a facade. And a facade is not a home; it’s not a place where you can live. A monument is not a home; it’s not the real you. It is designed only to impress and nothing more.

In the 18th Century Count Grigory Potemkin was one of the favorites at the court of the Russian Czarina Catherine the Great. Potemkin was always currying favor with the queen. He found that the queen only wanted to hear good news. She wanted to believe that her people were happy and blithe and loved her, ta da, ta da. So whenever the queen announced travel plans, Count Potemkin would go out into the countryside ahead of the queen’s procession, and he would take just shells, just fake buildings, and would prop them up. He would hire some peasants and put them in nice clean clothes, so that when the czarina came by, these perfect people would wave cheerfully in front of these nothing buildings, and she would be impressed. How well my people were living! What a fine job my government is doing! The only problem was that the Potemkin Village, as it was called, was all shells, just fronts and facades, nothing inside. It was lovely to look at, but it wasn’t real.

Our lives can be like that too. Like David, we decide to do something dramatic and spectacular, and we convince ourselves it is for God. Maybe we decide to be extra generous this Christmas; we’re going to give some really nice gifts. That’s not bad in and of itself. But who is that really for? The recipients? Or ourselves? Maybe we decide that this year we are going to give to missions, we are going to serve a meal at a shelter, we are going to sing for the homebound. And that’s great. That’s fine. But is it for them, or is it for us? Is it reputation building, or is it a heart of compassion?