B-U-S-T-E-D. Did you ever have one of those moments? You're clearly doing something you shouldn't be doing and you get caught in the act? You let that sassy word slip out only to turn around and see a child looking at you wide eyed. Your mom finds you with your hand in the jar after she's told you to leave those cookies alone. You make a "friendly" hand gesture toward the car next to you just as you realize it’s someone that attends your church.
How do you respond in those times? Do you own up to what you've done or
do you try to cover it up? Make excuses, perhaps?
David had clearly messed up by committing adultery and murder, yet I'm encouraged by his response to Nathan. "I have sinned against the Lord." He knew he was wrong and he owned up to it.
-Gina G.
...and even though David messed up, and he owned up, God still blessed him with the birth of Solomon!
ReplyDeleteGina is right, he did realize he’d sinned and he owned it but it took TWO YEARS!
ReplyDeleteThat is how long it is believed to have been before Nathan visited David. This chapter has perplexed me for many years. How could anyone be unaware that killing a man and adultery were sins? Especially David! I find it baffling. David must have been the LAST to see the sin too. This was not a secret sin between two consenting adults. There were maidservants, military commanders, written messages passed, David’s staff, etc. I have seen CSI enough to know that there were way too many loose ends for this to be the perfect crime. Everyone must have been whispering about it. David didn’t mourn for Uriah either; he didn’t even pretend to care. However, when it was Abner, Saul or Saul’s son he publicly mourned their loss. We are talking about David, the passionate guy who wore his emotions on his sleeve.
I have never been impressed by David’s repentant heart in this situation at all. He did repent but it took a prophet coming to him and tricking him with a story in order for him to take ownership of what he’d done. Yes, he fully repented… eventually. What hits me so hard by this whole story is not David though. It is the patience, forgiveness and grace of God during one of David’s lowest points. He waited a long time for David to come around, then he disciplined and then he restored. A powerful example of how the Father loves us.
We are all slow to own our sin. There are always mitigating circumstances, excuses, explanations. Sometimes it takes a "Nathan" to help us/make us see our behavior for what it is. And who wants to play that part? It's tough, but often critical. Thank God if you have a friend who loves you enough to tell you when you're wrong.
ReplyDeleteSee, that is what really perplexes me, Paul. I agree with you that we are often slow to see our own sin and sometimes need a Nathan. I think David knew though. Possibly a really severe case of denial for 2 years but how could he have not known... deep down?
ReplyDeleteI could be 100% wrong but I do not see David's response or Psalm 51 as if a light bulb went off and David suddenly had a paradigm shift. I view it more as if he finally gave up hiding and running from the truth that he knew was there. Psalm 51 is almost a blurting out of all the things he had been wanting to say while he hid these weighty issues in his heart for 2 years. I believe he was entirely sincere.
It almost ministers to me even more when I consider that he lived with the darkness of his sins for 2 yrs hoping it would go away. Hidden sin is pure agony. Nathan coming to him seems like it was more than a reckoning or rebuke but instead God reaching out to him and saying "I know what you did now let's get past this silence between us, deal with it and clean you up."
I don't believe this is about David. I believe this is about a man after God's own heart. Not the son of God, not Christ who was without sin, but a man, a sinful man. The story is mine as it is anybody's who owns up to being sinful. It is God's character to restore what the locust has taken away, and David's Almighty God chose to take the mess David made of his life and turn it into true repentance and passion. I believe that after David's fall and true repentance his passion for worship grew much stronger. I find comfort that it took two years for David to repent. It took me a lot longer and I grew up as a preacher's kid, knowing well what sin was and what sin was not. When the Holy Spirit did not relent and sent me not one but several Nathans, when He revealed to me that my pattern of rebellion was in a cycle (every TWO YEARS), when His love gripped me and said: "Let's clean you up. My love for you is much bigger than your sin"... then my passion to never grieve Him again has brought me walk closer with my Savior, for without Him I certainly would go back to my nature: a sinful life cycle! Blessed be His name!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Edi. That makes sense too. I agree, the big point is God's forgiveness.
ReplyDelete