I am reading in the Old Testament, 1 Chronicles 14. In verses 5-12 it tells of a time when King David and his men were moving the Ark of the Lord back to its rightful place among the people.
At one point, the cart carrying the Ark almost fell over so a man named Uzza touched the Ark trying to keep it from falling. Verse 9 says this is what happened to Uzza. “And when they came to Chidon’s threshing floor, Uzza put his hand to hold the Ark, for the oxen stumbled. The anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzza, and He struck him because he put his hand to the Ark; and he died there before God.”
David was angry at God for this because he thought Uzza was doing a good thing. Uzza probably did what any good man who wants to do good would have done – even you and me. But what did he do?
Uzza acted presumptively. He presumed he knew what to do so he did it. Uzza died that day trying in his mind to do something right and good.
I asked myself as I read this today, why Lord did you have to kill him? He was doing what he was told, and he was doing what he thought was right. The Lord responded by showing me I was asking the wrong question.
“Ask yourself, Allen, this question. Who do you think you are that you can ask God to explain His actions?”
The Lord is God. He doesn’t have to explain Himself to me. Who am I to think that He should or would?
I was thinking presumptuously. I presumed I would know if God acted right if He explained Himself to me.
“Really Allen? Are you to judge if God is right or wrong?”
I presumed that I could know if He did what was necessary. My idea of necessary is not His.
The Lord is not anxious. He doesn’t get to a place and fret over anything. He does not worry about what is happening. He wants us to learn not to worry about what is happening as much as He wants us to take time in our moments of anxiety, even good anxiety, to ask Him how we should move.
“Instead, Allen, ask Me how you should move.”
When you ask how to move, God will show you what to do. We may feel like there is no time to ask how, but God is all the time we need.
The Lord has to be our standard for what is right and wrong, good or bad, necessary or not. There is no other. Even if we do not understand, we cannot presume that we know better that He knows.
Uzza it is said, died that day before God. I pray that the day that I die, it too will be before God and not before all my own ideas of how I have tried to do good for Him.
Learn how to do good before Him. You will learn to find areas of your own life where your assumptions lead you to think and act presumptively. Letting go to our presumptuous nature is one of the last things of the self we find and let die.
Put your hand out on your presumptions and let them die before God today. Free yourself from yourself so you don’t entangle others with the things that entangle you.
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