So, you hear a knock on the door one day after work. You open it, and see God standing at your doorstep. What do you do? Do you let Him in immediately, or would you hurriedly go turn off the TV or try to clean the place up a bit? He says He needs to stay for three months. Would you be comfortable with having God in your house for three whole months? Would you have to make a lot of adjustments or would it feel pretty normal?
Most of us will never have to answer any of these questions. I live in Utah right now, so I figure God would have plenty of places to stay if he wanted to spend a few days on earth for some reason. But one guy actually had to answer these questions: Obed-Edom the Gittite.
We don't know much about this guy. He was probably from a Levite city called Gath-Rimmon, and he lived outside Jerusalem during the reign of King David. In fact, he probably lived right along the main road leading down to Jerusalem. It is very likely that he was standing outside his door along that road on the day David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. He would have seen the Ark come by, pulled along slowly by two oxen, driven by two brothers, Uzzah and Ahio.
It is also very likely that he would have been watching as one of the drivers reached out his hand, steadied the Ark, and instantly dropped dead.
What now? He couldn't just leave this body in the street, and he certainly couldn't let the Ark sit there in the middle of the road. The king could have had somebody take care of Uzzah while a few other guys took the Ark the rest of the way. But suddenly, King David was not so sure he wanted the Ark in his house anymore. He was afraid that Uzzah's death might be the first of many, and he didn't want his family to be on the list. So what did he do? He asked Obed-Edom the Gittite if he would be willing to keep the Ark at his place. In other words, he asked him if he would be willing to turn his house into a temple on the spot.
It looks like it worked out pretty well for him. In fact, they seem to have put it in Obed-Edom's house right away, just to get it out of the road. I would like to think that Obed-Edom didn't have to scramble around much to temple-ize his house. Maybe he just threw open the doors and let the Ark in right away. Even though he was clearly dealing with a God that had exacting standards, standards he had just seen played out during the Uzzah incident, it was said of him: "The Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God."
I can only hope that if I were to keep God in my living room for three months that it would be a blessing to me. I can't help but wonder if it was a little weird at first, to open the door every day and see the throne of God in your front room. But it probably became second-nature after a while.
Just like it does for us.
Think about it. A lot of us have the gift of the Holy Ghost, meaning we have God living with us. Granted, He is God the Holy Ghost and not God the Father, but perhaps we should take more serious the notion that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Aaron, the brother of Moses, used to wear a little metal plate on the front of his hat with the words, "Holiness to the LORD" written on it. Perhaps that is apt today. Not that I am going to go around with a hat like that, but maybe the idea still applies. As temples of the Holy Ghost shouldn't we be "Holiness to the LORD" just like temples are "Holiness to the Lord?"
In some ways, Obed-Edom's experience is light-years removed from anything that might happen to us, but in some ways, we have his experience every day. The phrase "holiness to the LORD" could better be translated "consecrated to the LORD," or "set aside for the exclusive use of the LORD." And shouldn't we all be consecrated to the Lord? My house is not specifically set apart as a temple right now, and I don't go around with a metal plate on my forehead, but maybe we would do well to remember that we have all been set apart for the exclusive use of God.
Thanks to the gift of the Holy Ghost, I live, work, eat, and sleep in the presence of God, as long as I am worthy of His presence. He can be in my house anytime, just as certainly as the Ark was in Obed-Edom's house. Sure, I don't have the Ark in my living room, but the Holy Ghost can still visit anyway. He just has to sit on the couch.
