Now what does God say? What is the rendering of the Lord concerning these plans?

1) God's greatness and God's glory are not dependent upon David's dream (vv. 5-11). The Lord essentially tells Nathan to tell David that he doesn't need a house. He recounts the fact that He has dwelt in a tent with Israel, and He has never asked for a permanent home. He also reminds David that he was just a shepherd boy when God reached down and anointed him as King. He has been with David through it all.

The bottom line of God here is this: "I do the building son, not you. I will make the plans, son, not you. My glory is not dependent upon your dreams."

We are given a very fundamental and basic theological lesson by the Lord. It is this: the freedom and independence of God. The importance of that statement is that God is God and we are not. He is the initiator. He is the sovereign Lord who builds up and brings down. We must be careful when we pray that we remember this.

C.S. Lewis reminds us that prayer is simply "a lesser being making a petition to a Greater Being." When we pray we must not think that when we ask for something God must do that. It won't fly with the Almighty. He is free. His ways are not our ways. His understanding is so much higher than ours. Paul wrote: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" (Rom. 11:33).

The answer to David is not, however, "No". God takes David's dreams and vision for God's glory and perfects them. He is going to do something even greater than David imagined.

When I was an intern the church I was ministering in had some troubles and lost all of their staff in one day. They brought in a wise old interim, Dr. Donald Hoke. Dr. Hoke called the church and asked if they could borrow a minister for a while. Being the lowest form of clergy on staff, I was loaned out. And how thankful I am! I learned a great deal from Dr. Hoke. I got to observe a wise and experienced shepherd at his best. He began by asking all staff, from secretaries to all clergy, to memorize Eph. 3:20: "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Eph. 3:20).

Everywhere he went he focused on that verse. He said either we can sink in our estimation of what will happen, or rise to the mind of God. He said that we could either aim low and hit our target, or aim high and get close to God's.

David thought that God needed a house. He was dreaming. Nathan was dreaming. But they were too small. They dreamed too little. Sometimes its better to just latch on to the great theological truth of the Bigness of God and the Freedom of God and unleash that thought in our lives. I'm happy to say that church grew under Dr. Hoke's interim. The church made it back to the land of the living. They eventually healed, called another pastor, filled the staff, and today have become one of the most dynamic churches in our denomination. But It started with focusing on the greatness of God.