Paul writes:
6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,
7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.
8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
Verse seven is routinely lifted from context and attached any an every adventure. But Paul puts the phrase into parallel with verse nine: We make it our aim to please him.
He makes sure that the point is plain by mentioning the judgment seat of Christ (10).
A fundamental misapplication of the text would be to locate the object of faith somewhere other than God’s will: for the aim is to please God.
Numbers 14 seems to provide a good illustration of that principle: there is the apparent understanding of the circumstance, the need to trust God to know more, and the context of pleasing God. When reading through the story note that the point of faith and action and punishment and forgiveness is the glory of God (our aim to please him):
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel.
6 And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes
7 and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land.
8 If the LORD delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey.
9 Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.”
10 Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel.
11 And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?
12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
13 But Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them,
14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people. For you, O LORD, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.
15 Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say,
16 ‘It is because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’
17 And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying,
18 ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’
19 Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”
20 Then the LORD said, “I have pardoned, according to your word.
21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD,
22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice,
23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.
24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.