First Chronicles, the Shorter Version

David:  Dear God, I think it's pretty lame I live in this fancy house and the Ark is in a tent.  I'd like to build you a house.
YHWH:  Dave, don't worry about it.
Dave:  No, Sir, I really mean it, I want to build you a house.
YHWH:  I understand.  I'm flattered, and I'd let you build me a house--but remember all that blood on your hands?  Remember Uriah's wife?  Tell you what--you can't do it, but I'll let your son do it.  Deal?
Dave:  DEAL!

David proceeds to get all the wood, all the gold, all the bronze, all the silver, and all the jewels that could possibly be used on the temple together.  He draws the plans.  He figures out who will play the harp on what day, the cymbal on what day.  Who'll guard the north door on this day.  He makes all the plans.  He can't build God's house, but he's too excited and too in love with God not to do something to praise him with all of his might (do we, friends, praise God with all of our might?  Or do we wait for the "perfect" opportunity, the really magnificent thing we can do for Him?  I think He wants us to be like David, and praise Him as best as we can, while accepting that there are some things we just can't do). 

And then, in Chapter 29, he sings a song of praise that has serious echoes of our Lord's Prayer.  And then he crowns Solomon king.  And then, the thing that hit me so hard when I read it this morning:

²⁷And the time that he reigned over Israel was forty years; seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem.

Read that again friends; not just forty years he reigned, but seven in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem.

7 and 33.  7 and 33.

Oh praise Him, friends, for His mysterious and profound symmetry.