I am almost finished with another awesome book entitled Bathsheba by Jill Eileen Smith. Buy it here on Amazon.
In her work, Smith recounts David’s infamous sin of 2 Samuel 11, from the perspective of Bathsheba, the young beauty. I am loving the third book in Smith’s series The Wives of King David. These books have brought David and every person he encountered to LIFE for me. So often, I read my Bible – stories I have read hundreds of times…and they just lose their magic. They go from being real accounts of people with feelings alike to you and I – jealousy, love, passion, lust – to simply robotic people who are so far off; from a different time and a different place. They morph into people who are boxed in by black letters on white pages. They couldn’t possibly relate to us, right?
(I remember feeling this way when I traveled to Israel. I knew about the Sea of Galilee; that place where Jesus did some of His greatest works, like walking on water and calming the storm. However, when at last I stood on a boat in that water, it came alive to me.)
In the past, I read about David committing adultery, getting another man’s wife pregnant, and then covering it all up by having the husband secretly killed. (You know you have really screwed up when it takes a run-on sentence to explain what you have done!) Every time I read this story, I found myself thinking, “What a moron! How could he possibly do something so low?” Yet, while I read this story, astonishingly…my judgmental attitude slipped away. Ironically, I found myself having compassion on David and understanding how easily he fell to massive temptation. When he could do nothing to clean up his mess, maybe out of sheer embarrassment…he covered it and tried to forget.
“…let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up…” Hebrews 12:1
The truth is, except for God’s grace, any one of us could be the adulterer or the murderer. Because as the writer of Hebrews penned, sin so very easily trips us up. The most beautiful part of this book, is David’s soft heart of repentance when he is confronted with what he has done.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation…” Psalm 51
David may have fallen harder and deeper into sin than you or I ever will ever venture to go, but what I admire about David – he was always SO quick to repent and come back to God after his failures. What an example. David was the master of getting back on his feet. David knew how to hold his head high, brush the dust off and move on.
Because, if God forgives, why can’t we?
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