As I sit here this morning writing this, my morning began VERY early as I awoke from a vivid dream where my now basically grown-up children were young again, playing with toys and crying for me to tuck them in bed at night. The dream was so real that I could not get back to sleep again as I was shocked into reality that they are now 16 to 21 years of age and I can NEVER go back to those days of their childhood again. It also dawned upon my heart that I probably have less life in front of me, than I have behind me, and thus I wonder what my life could be summed up as having been.
From my earliest memories I have always wanted to serve the Lord and I truly wanted to be known as a man that is faithful, first to his God, second to his wife, third to his children, and lastly to his serve of others. But after the dream this morning I am asking myself if that fervent faithfulness in my life is really true or not.
David has been my Bible hero for as long as I can remember. This is mainly because he is called the “man after God’s heart” and I have always felt that was the greatest title any person could have. And although he often was weak in the flesh and had to make amends for his failings, he was still the man that God used greatly to build Israel and prepare them for the Temple that Solomon built and thus he was God's man in so many areas. As an example, David had driven out many of the pagan nations that had not been driven out during the days of Joshua and this clearly pleased his God. David also was a great man of God, I believe, mainly because of his fervor for God. This fervor was so great that even the children of Israel saw David as their “father” of fervor and zeal as was mentioned in Jesus’ Triumphant Entry (Mark 11:10).
But often when we think of David, our minds usually drift into the sin with Bathsheba and the killing of Uriah afterwards as well as a variety of other situations that overshadow David’s fervent spiritual life. However it was not David’s sin that made him so close to God but his fervor for the things of God and his reactions to his sins. We know that David loved the Lord plain and simple, yet, he lived in a body of flesh and would often fail his Lord. But then he would immediately repent of his sin when it pointed out to him and that is where his servant spirit lay.
If I could sum up what I want my life to be, it would be to have a fervor for the Lord even when I fail to live as I should. I am reminded of a verse that David write in Psalm 69, where verse nine says, “…the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up….” David wrote here that he wanted the things of the Lord so badly that the zeal (fervor) had overtaken him - he was consumed with serving the Lord. Of that I would have that kind of zeal with whatever time I have left in my life! As a matter of fact, this “zeal” was seen so clearly in the life of Christ as well that His disciples remembered Psalm 69:9 as Jesus was cleaning the House of the Lord out in John 2:13-17.
Our lives are but a vapor and will quickly pass (James 4:14) and we should follow the example of a father of zeal, should we not?
As I was finishing this article for posting I looked out the window and saw a mother deer and her VERY young fawn and I thought about why I was awake so early - my dream about my children being young. Out of the window I could see that the fawn had gotten some distance away from its mother and then zealously galloped to catch up - which made me laugh. But then I realized that one day, not long ago, that mother dear had been a zealous fawn and now she had grown up to be the ever watchful mother. But that’s the way of life that God created. My children are growing up and I am growing older…hopefully serving the Lord and seeking the be “the man after God’s own heart” - filled with zeal for my Heavenly Father.
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