Daily Devotional for Thursday, February 8

The Details of the Project

“So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men,” 2 Samuel 24:8,9.

I took a personality test once that gave each person a color based on their answers to a list of questions. I do not remember all the details, but the four colors were red, green, yellow and blue. The basic summary equated each color with how you would build a tree house. The red would disregard the instructions so they could get to work faster, get frustrated that the tree house was not turning out the way they wanted and would break some tools out of anger along the way. The green would read every single instruction and check it twice before completing each step to ensure that the tree house looked exactly like the picture upon completion. The yellow would call all their friends and host a tree house building party. The blue would look at the materials and dream up something more creative than the provided instructions and probably end up with an underground bunker instead of a tree house. My guess is that Joab was a combination of red and green.

Even though Joab disagreed with David’s decision to number the army-ready citizens, he followed orders and took his time to complete the task, nine months and twenty days to be exact. Something I find interesting is that the gestational period for humans is also about that amount of time. It seems as if God was showing that the conception of David’s census plan would birth a child of pain for Israel.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY
God may allow us to go through with our human plans to humble us and show us that His way is the best way.

Ashley Ridings