"Now therefore thus shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, even from following the sheep, that thou shouldest be ruler over my people Israel:
And I have been with thee whithersoever thou hast walked, and have cut off all thine enemies from before thee, and have made thee a name like the name of the great men that are in the earth.
Also I will ordain a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, and they shall dwell in their place, and shall be moved no more; neither shall the children of wickedness waste them any more, as at the beginning,
And since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel. Moreover I will subdue all thine enemies. Furthermore I tell thee that the Lord will build thee an house."
1 Chronicles 17:7-10
At the beginning of the chapter, David the king and Nathan the prophet are talking and David says "Lo, I dwell in an house of cedars, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord remaineth under curtains." Nathan likes the idea of building a house to the Lord, so he tells David to go for it. Then, that night, Nathan dreams, and this is part of the message, telling David to chill, and that the Lord will build HIM a house, rather than the other way around.
I find this interesting, because we know that the Lord values temples, and wants us to invest the time into building houses to his name. In this case though, perhaps the intention was off. David might have been thinking of doing a favor for the Lord rather than cementing the Lord's name and importance in the hearts and minds of his people for *their* benefit. The Lord tells us clearly in 2 Nephi 27:20 "I am able to do mine own work." Temples (and other material objects) are not gifts that we can give to the Lord. The only thing that we can give him, and that is worth offering, is our will--our own hearts and minds turned to his. The broken heart and contrite spirit is the sacrifice that the Lord desires of us... to help us come back to him, to be our best selves, again... not because he needs things OR servants. We "help" the Lord do his work, but it is help like the kid helping mom make a cake... it isn't because the kid is so much really helping as it is teaching the kid how to do something useful, and growing that relationship. :) Even the material gift of tithing and offerings is not because God needs the money. It is there to teach us faith, and that if we trust the Lord and do as he says, he will pour blessings down upon us so much that there won't be enough room to recieve them.
As we desire to offer gifts to the Lord in honor or celebration of his life and all that he has done for us, let's just keep in mind this lesson from David and Nathan's lives. Let's give the gift that the Lord wants... our time, attention, will, and obedience, so that we can someday give him the thing he wants most, which is seeing us return to his presence. Dramatic gestures are less important than sincere and heartfelt prayer and honest striving to be better people, closer to him. Today, let's give him *that* gift.
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