God's way does not always involve His answer to prayers. The reverse is often experienced. What should be our attitude in such circumstances?In 2 Samuel chapter 12 we have the record of King David's sin in connection with Bathsheba. God sent the prophet Nathan to him with the message that the child would surely die. David had sinned, but he loved his son though the child was the fruit of his sin. He had a father's heart and he pleaded with God for his son's life. But God said, "Because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die" (verse 14 NIV). But David continued to seek the Lord and he sure knew
how to pray. We see in verse 16 that he fasted and all night long he laid prostrate on the ground before God, but the child died! Anyone who has not learnt how to be subjected to God's way would have charged Him with harshness when his request was not granted. Many Christians have controversies with God when His ways conflict with their ways. Other might rebel or loose heart but not David. When the child died, his servants feared to break the news to him. They reasoned among themselves that if David was almost overwhelmed with anxiety when the child fell sick, his grief would be unbearable if he should learnt of his child death.What actually happened?
"Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, he put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and WORSHIPED. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food and he ate" (2 Samuel 12:20 NIV). What is worship? It Is bowing to the ways of God. It is not a dull kind of submission. It is not lapsing into hopelessness or passivity. It is a positive recognition of the sovereignty of God's ways.It is often necessary for God to vindicate Himself in relation to us. It means that if we sin He has to justify Himself by making it clear to the angels, to the devil, to the world and to all His children that He has no part in our sin. He has to make it plain to the principalities and powers, to the world and to the church that He cannot be involved in our iniquity. When we are found guilty before Him, His governmental hand comes upon us and we are tried in fires of affliction. How do we react at such a time? Worshipers who know His ways will say: "If my affliction can vindicate Thy holiness, then I say, amen! If You can make known Your righteousness by my suffering, then I acknowledge that You do all things well and I gladly accept Your dealings upon me."May God deliver us from our controversies with Him. When we meet with disappointments and frustrations we shall choose to worship Him if we see His ways.(Watchman Nee - Twelve Basket Full - Vol 2)
Comment: I believe it was King David's act of true repentance (Psalm 51) and his acceptance of God's vindication (in bowing to His way - in worship) that we see God's blessing upon David's life. Later Solomon was born through the forgiven union of David & Bathsheba where God chose this unimaginable channel through which the Messiah was born as revealed in the Genealogy of Jesus Christ [Just like Rahab the harlot (Joshua 2); and Ruth the Moab's union with Boaz (Matthew 1:5-6)]. God is sovereign! His ways are higher that our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). We bow in worship to God's Sovereign ways and His will in our lives!
In Exodus 32 to 34 we read of a difficult situation Moses encountered. Alone on Mount Sinai with God, the ten commandments written on two tablets were committed to Him. Meanwhile, trouble had broken out on the plain. The people had made a golden calf and worshiped it. This provoked God to great displeasure and He said to Moses: “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’” And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen these people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” (Exodus 32:7-10 NKJV)When Moses saw that God's wrath was stirred against His people he entreated God for them, then went down to deal with the situation on the plain. Thereafter he ascended the mount again and in obedience to God's command hewed two stone tablets like the first which he had broken, and with these in his hand, he went to the top of Mount Sinai, where God made a solemn proclamation, And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth,keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6-7)
At this point, it would have been most appropriate for Moses to bow down and worshiped God: but it was after the second part of the proclamation that he did so, and the second part was totally different from the first. The earlier part spoke of God's compassion, and grace, and mercy and forgiveness; but the latter was this: "Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation." (Exodus 34:7 NKJV) It was when God had proclaimedHis awesome majesty and holiness that "Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped." (verse 8). It is not merely grace that stirs worship; if we are to be worshipers of God we need to know His holiness.So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. Then he said, “If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.” (Exodus 34:8-9 NKJV)Comparing verse 8 and 9 of Exodus chapter 34, Moses first worship, then prayed. He first acknowledged the sovereignty of God's ways, then he seeks God's grace. He does not beseech God on the ground of His compassion, and grace, and plenteous mercies, and readiness to forgive to reverse His decision. Our prayer would be like that. We are always trying to persuade God not to do what He has said He would do. Moses was different. He took his right place before God and bowed to His ways.Beloved, have we been guilty of asking God to do what we knew was contrary to His ways of working? Have we sought Him to forgive a certain brother and cease to chasten him even when we knew that His dealings with that brother were right? That is no worshiping God. How often our prayers amount to requesting God to change His ways! Without considering His ways we just open our lips and ask Him to remove the pressure here, the sickness there and the domestic problems elsewhere. To pray after this fashion is seeking grace and ignoring the ways of God. Prayer is the expression of our will but worship is the acceptance of God's will.How we need to learn from Moses! God made His ways known to him and seeing His majesty and holiness, he fell down before God and worshiped. He did not reason with God about the consequences of God visiting their iniquity to the third and fourth generation. Let us not only learn to accept God's will and do His work, we must also learn to acknowledge His sovereign ways and accept all that He does are for His own good pleasure. This act of Moses is the ESSENCE of True Worship!
