1 Chronicles 13

King David wanted to do a very good thing. He wanted to bring the Ark of the Covenant back from its exile. He realized that, during the reign of Saul, the Lord had basically been ignored, and he wanted to change that. Unfortunately, after accusing Saul of not "inquiring" of the Ark, David did the same exact thing.

For one, he decided to bring the Ark to Jerusalem—even though the temple of God was in Gibeon. Second, he decided to use the heathen method of moving the Ark—on an oxen cart. Of course, all of this acting without thinking led to the death of Uzzah, who made the mistake of reaching out to steady the Ark. I’m sure that when Uzzah fell dead, a new sense of respect for the presence of God washed over the people.

For David, this respect was mixed with anger and discouragement. As he (temporarily) abandoned his plan to bring the Ark to Jerusalem, David finally asked a question: "How can I ever bring the ark of God to me?" (vs 12) The interesting thing is, God had provided the answer to this very question decades before. In Exodus 25, He gave very specific instructions about how the Ark was to be transported. And on this occasion, things would have turned out very differently if David had inquired of the Lord beforehand.

God is always answering questions before we ask them. Often, the reason we run into trouble is because we never get around to asking the questions in the first place. So, when we encounter unexpected difficulties (as David did in his bid to bring the Ark back to Jerusalem), instead of getting angry and discouraged, maybe we should start asking questions. If we do, we’ll find that God is just waiting with the answers!