When undertaking the construction of anything, but particularly a sanctuary, it is important to balance two things. The first thing is that you do not want to be presumptuous about the future. The second is that you must walk in faith, in full confidence about the future. If you are reading the story you are in, then you should be anticipating how the next chapter is supposed to go.
With regard to the first, the Bible is very plain. You do not know what tomorrow will bring. Our lives are a mist, a vapor, a bit of cloud in the mountains (Jas. 4:14). Why then do we make confident pronouncements as though the future were held by us? To behave this way is presumption.
So what is faith? To a secular observer standing off to the side, faith can look an awful lot like presumption. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).
On the one hand, you don’t want to run on out ahead, writing faith checks on the assumption that something magic is going to happen in your bank account if only you write the checks fast enough. On the other hand, playing it safe—burying the talent in the ground—is not safe either. It appears that God wants us to avoid two kinds of foolhardiness—one that is rash and the other that is timid.
Suppose we build a sanctuary for a thousand people and a thousand people don’t come? Suppose we overshoot like that? Suppose we set our sights low, build a much smaller sanctuary, and God says “so be it according to your faith,” and we have trouble filling that one? What if this and what if that? Better yet—what if we trust God?
One of the names the Bible has for us is believers. That means that our task is to believe God, stepping out in faith, trusting Him to guide us. Surrender the point in principle, and go. God doesn’t steer parked cars.
So let the stones cry out.