It was springtime...
King David
of Jerusalem was at home enjoying the breeze and the view from the
palace roof. A beautiful woman caught his eye. With this introduction, we might be
expecting a love story. But a entirely different story develops.
We remember from last week that David's
setting his sights on a woman began a series of disastrous events in his life. David had the woman Bathsheba brought to his palace and afterward sent her
away. Situation became more complicated when she sends word to David that she is pregnant. David begins to scheme how he will resolve
this dilemma. He sends for her husband
Uriah who is a soldier on the
battlefront. David tries in vain to get
Uriah to spend his furlough with his wife Bathsheba but the loyal soldier refuses.
So David pursues a new plan: he will see that Bathsheba's husband is
killed in the next battle and then when
Bathsheba is a widow, David will add her to his harem. The abuse, the deception, and the murder will be hidden away. David after all is king.
There is one person that questions David's plan: his friend Nathan, the
prophet. Nathan loved David enough to confront him.
Nathan speaks to his king in a manner that does not put David
on the defensive. He tells David a story :a person of wealth needed a lamb for his banquet. And even
though the rich man had a flock of sheep, he chose to take the pet lamb of his
neighbor to be slaughtered. (The pet lamb which was like a member of the family.)
This lamb was served to the guests.
David is filled with
disgust. What kind of person would do
such a thing? To bring such heartache to
his neighbor.
David is ready to punish the
guilty party, the greedy person who had
no pity. Who has done this thing?
And then Nathan delivers the
blow: “You are the one. I'm talking
about you. “
This becomes David's moment
of truth.
In our day, we would say that
Nathan and David had a confrontation, an intervention.
Brad Lamm describes
intervention as “interrupting
self-destructive behaviors with love. We are reminding someone that we care,
that we pay attention, and that we see them for what they really are.”
Nathan risked his standing
with David in order to help the king.
David had much power and status, but he had forgotten that he also had
boundaries. God's laws set limits for him as well as others.
Nathan also knew that David
was a man of faith, one who searched for God, and desired to follow God's ways.
Nathan was not going to let David's
behavior go un noticed.
To intervene can be messy, and also scary because we don't
know the reaction of the other person. It involves talking honestly about
things that may make us uneasy.
When we intervene, we are not
condemning , or shaming, or embarrassing.
The goal is not to destroy,
but to restore. Nathan wanted David to be the great leader that he believed he
could be.
Pastor Charles Swindoll commented that he would prefer to have a friend who cared
more for his character than for his comfort. He said: In
your choice of friends, be certain that you have a few who care less for your
comfort that they do for your character. Most of us want to make our friends
comfortable. Few are good enough friends to overlook the comfort for the good
of the character. And if you have some who care more for your character than your comfort, you are rich indeed, you
are many times blessed...I have a physician who is like that. He doesn't say when
he gets to an x-ray that looks questionable, “Oh.. we won't worry about this
one. This is a bad picture, Let's talk good news today. Let's go have lunch
together.' No, he snaps that x-ray on that screen and he says, “Now look at
this Chuck. That does not look good. We gotta do something about that.” And so
it is with a wife. And so it is with a parent. And so it must be with a friend.
How did David respond to the
truth? Did he completely deny his
behavior? Did he make excuses?
Did he put the blame on others? Did he downplay what had happened? Did he tell Nathan to mind his own business?
David offered no excuses, he didn't try to
explain away his actions. David offered a simple confession: “I have sinned against the Lord.” . In Psalm
51, (believed to have been written by David in the midst of this situation) we
hear from David's heart as he takes responsibility for all that has
happened. David wants his life to be
cleaned up, he wants to be a different person.
Nathan held a mirror up to David so that he could see himself, and he
did not look away.
Virginia Satir, renown family
therapist ,wrote: “Until we own all of who we are and what we have done- the
good, the bad, the ugly- we can never be whole.”
David has come to a life
changing moment and he accepts the truth about himself that he sees.
In recovery programs which use the 12 steps,
some of the steps include:
admitting to God, yourself,
and another person the wrongs that you have done; asking God for help, and being ready to be
transformed by his power. Even though David was not in a recovery group,this is
the process that David is engaged in.
Within our relationships,
there are times when some one is like a Nathan to us, expressing their concerns about our behavior. And other
times we also may be in a position to speak to a friend as a Nathan. We all
have blind spots in looking at our actions. As we speak to one another, the
goal is always to restore and not tear down. It may take many encounters
and consequences in our lives before the truth sinks in. Thank
God for those who care, the Nathans who help us to see where our life is going.
A father
was on a weekend retreat for men. Before he left home, his daughter had
asked him why he yelled at Mommy so much.
The dad had thought about his daughter's words ever since. During the
retreat, he had a time of sharing with other men. He came to the harsh
realization that he had higher
expectations and was more short tempered and less forgiving with his wife than
with anyone else. He saw the pain that he was causing. With his friends'
support at the retreat, he committed
himself to change his behavior with God's help. And he promised to share what
he realized with his wife.
In these times of
intervention, there is a spiritual
mirror so that we can see ourselves as we are.
There is also a window that
reveals God's grace and love for us, great mercy in the midst of failure!
Remember that David confessed
his sins and he was forgiven.
Like us, David still had to deal with the consequences of his past
actions. Nathan told him that “the sword shall never depart from your house”
and that was the reality. In David's life, there would be violence and
betrayal between him and his children.
His quest for power and control were imitated by his sons and there was much
heartache in David's future.
Eugene Peterson wrote a book
about David, (Leap over the Wall)
and in it he writes that there is not much variation in sin. It is
dull and repetitive. People have been
doing the same kind of things for thousands of years. The wrong that we do is
basically our wanting to be in control of everything , regardless of what God
might want for us, or how it affects others. But God's grace and love, Peterson
says, that is another story: it is rich, an endless variety , and can come in
so many ways to save us!!
That is what David
discovered. God is present when David's
life is out of control. God is there when Nathan helps David to see himself. God is present in David's
confession and in his yearning to be a new man. God's faithfulness to David
never falters.
God
kept reminding David of his
identity: a man whose heart was to be one with God's.
God is present with us also
in all our wanderings and our struggles.
May we too accept the truth in love about ourselves and also the abundant grace of God that brings us wholeness!
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