David’s story – both in last week’s lesson on Mind and the previous week’s lesson on Soul gave me a much greater appreciation of David and the qualities that made him so special. In the most recent lesson and I was inspired by David’s wisdom, humility and obedience – putting his desire to build God’s temple on the alter and then being obedient to God when God told him “no.” How many people (myself included) just forge ahead with what we think we want and try to use Christian Science to help make that happen. But building the temple apparently wasn’t what God had for David to do and so David let it go and moved on. It fit well with another passage I was working with this week from Miscellany: “We must resign with good grace what we are denied, and press on with what we are, for we cannot do more than we are nor understand what is not ripening in us. To do good to all because we love all, and to use in God’s service the one talent that we all have, is our only means of adding to that talent and the best way to silence a deep discontent with our shortcomings.” This has been really helpful to me as a guide for what to do when I feel frustrated or not totally clear why something isn’t yielding – I need to press on using that one talent we all have in God’ s service.
I also loved how David taught Solomon and prayed for his son – there wasn’t any personal sense in it – he clearly saw Solomon as God’s son and his instruction to Solomon was to turn to God for wisdom, while his prayers for Solomon were that God bestow in him a perfect heart and a desire to keep walking in the way that God directed. This was very beautiful to me and instructive of how to keep praying for my daughter and all children. My deep thanks to the lesson writers these past weeks – they were so inspired and so helpful!