I Chronicles 15:2 Then David said, None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites
If you ever touched a hot stove when you were a child, you probably never forgot that, and my guess is that you have never intentionally touched a hot stovetop again. Why is that? That is because the most memorable lessons you have learned are probably the ones that cost you the most. If you have ever gone to college and failed a class, you know the pain, the feelings of failure and loss. You paid money for that class. It is different than merely auditing a class. You put blood, sweat, and tears into that class and you have lost the lesson you wished to have gained. Life’s lessons are usually most remembered when they are the most poignant.
Wise people learn from their mistakes. Someone has said that people who don’t make mistakes don’t make anything. All of us have made mistakes. So, the wise person is not the one who has never made a mistake, but the one who has learned from his mistakes. King David was such a person. As you may recall, I Chronicles 13 records the failure of David as he brought the Ark of God to its new home. God judged for doing so in the wrong way, which was not a small thing. David could have known what was right, and David was afraid of God that day saying, “How shall I bring the ark of God home to me?” In chapter 15 we have the answer. In verse 2 David says, “None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites.”
So, a wise person learns from his mistakes. He asks himself two questions. First, he asks, “What does God say?” Verse 15 says that they transported the Ark of God “upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according the word of the LORD.” It was done as God had said. David saw the contrast between what he had done and what God had said. Then, he owned his mistake. Wise people own their mistakes. You cannot learn from your mistakes if you do not acknowledge the origin, the fault, and the blame. It takes maturity to own up to your mistakes. Then, look forward. You don’t live back there with your mistakes. You lean and look forward, learning from the past. So, what does God say?
Second, a wise person should ask, “Whom do I seek to please?” Verse 26 tells us that God helped the Levites that bare the ark. I’m not sure quite what that means, but it is amazing to me that God Himself helped the very people who were helping the Ark to its new place. Even in their service to God, they needed God’s help. That may sound like a circle, but it is the fact. God helped the Levites who bare the Ark. David was seeking to please God. Both when he had done this thing wrong and now when he was doing it right there was enthusiasm, fanfare, and rejoicing, but the difference was who they were actually seeking to please and what God had said.
In verse 29 the daughter of Saul and wife of David, Michal, looked out a window and saw David “dancing and playing: and she despised him in her heart.” David was overjoyed with the Ark coming to its new place, and he was not acting as she thought a king should act. But he was completely subservient to God and concerned about God’s glory, not his own, not about how people saw him as much as how people saw God.
The Bible says Michal despised him in her heart. I cannot imagine a deeper blow than someone that close to me not believing in me. I do not have to have everyone in my world think that I am great, but I do need to have the people that are in my world, the people in my own house, believe that I am a man of integrity, to love me, and to believe in what I am doing. David lost that from his own wife, yet David was doing what he was doing because he wanted to please God and because he wanted to do what God wanted the way God wanted it done.
So, wise people learn from mistakes. Don’t dwell on the mistakes of the past. Learn from your mistakes, and lean into the future that God has for you.