2 SAMUEL 6

Right off the bat, I must confess that I owe a debt of gratitude for the way I look at Uzzah’s story to Eugene Peterson’s insights in his book Leap Over a Wall. If you’d like to read more about the life of David, I highly recommend picking up that book. It helped me see a lot of things in a new way—including the story of Uzzah.

David decided to bring the ark back to Jerusalem. Only... he didn’t bother to check out how the ark was supposed to be moved. Or if he did, he ignored the instructions. God had specifically decreed that the Levites were to carry the ark wherever it needed to go. However, when the Philistines hauled the ark off into captivity, they decided to move it on a cart. Perhaps the Israelites thought the Philistines were on to something. After all, why lug such a heavy thing around when you can put it on a cart and get some cattle to do the heavy lifting?

There was just one problem. A cart moving over uneven ground isn’t always that steady and stable, and at one point, the ark began to tip. "When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God." (vs 6-7)

I had always found that odd before. Uzzah’s irreverent act? He was trying to keep the ark from falling to the ground. I would have thought that would have fallen under the reverent category. I guess not. And, if that weren’t enough, the next verse doesn’t help very much: "Then David was angry because the Lord’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and... he was not willing to take the ark of the Lord to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite." (vs 8, 10)

If touching the ark was irreverent, wouldn’t you think getting angry with God would be even more irreverent? How in the world did David have the audacity to be angry with God—and to show that anger—after God had done something so dreadful? Shouldn’t David have been cowering in his boots?

On the contrary, I think Uzzah’s irreverent act was in trying to manage God. From the details in the story, it appears he had more of a boss/employee relationship with God instead of a personal one. He wasn’t worried about what God wanted or didn’t want. He was just trying to move God to the place where he wanted Him to be.

I have recently heard religions referred to as "God management systems." It’s as if we have constructed a framework of beliefs and traditions around what we think we need to do in order to get God to do what we want Him to do. It’s a way to manage Him. To keep Him in line. To make sure He’s fulfilling His end of the salvation bargain. And all the while, we may be missing out on the whole point—the actual relationship.

That’s what makes David’s anger not irreverent. The fact that David felt comfortable enough with God to, first, get angry with Him for what He did and, second, to leave the ark right where it was for a while suggests that David wasn’t trying to manage God at all. In fact, he wasn’t even trying to manage himself in the context of their relationship. He was just busy having a relationship with God—warts and all.

This is what God wants. He doesn’t want us to try to manage Him. (Hint: He can’t be managed.) Instead, He wants us to have a relationship with Him. He doesn’t want the clear-cut, four-cornered contract. He wants the messiness of a relationship with all the emotions that come with it—love, hate, anger, jealousy, happiness, and sadness. Instead of hiding our true selves from Him, He wants us to bring it all to Him: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Instead of trying to manage God, in the context of our relationship with Him, He wants to help us learn self-management. So, the next time you’re tempted to try to paint God into a corner or manage Him in some way, remember Uzzah. God cannot be managed by His creatures. Trying to put Him where we want Him is a surefire dead end!