Living in the Spirit
July 21, 2015
Scripture Reading:
2 Samuel 11:1-15 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, ‘Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.’
–2 Samuel 11:14-15
When did not getting caught become more important than life itself? The great David, the king of all kings, acts like a two year old with his hand in the cookie jar. We basically all know when we have done wrong and we usually do not want to admit it. David was never tried or convicted of either murder or corruption in government. He was essentially above the law. His conscience was his only prosecutor, but it took some furtive attempts at cover-up before he faced the reality of what he had done.
I do not want to make light of David’s transgressions, but we have all been guilty of acting like David did in this story at some time or another, hopefully with far lesser consequences. When I was in the second grade my mother taught at my school and we rode to and from school with her that year rather than riding the school bus. One day we stopped at the only grocer in our small town to pick up a few things on our way home. While mom shopped I wondered over to the ice cream section picked out a fudge bar and took it to the car to eat. When my mother arrived at the car and saw the sticky chocolate evidence of my theft on my hands and face with the ice cream stick still in my hand, she marched me back into the store and made me apologize to Mr. Chadwick, the owner. She paid for the fudge bar and we left. I do not remember any lecture, I do remember working out the costs of the fudge bar. To my knowledge and memory I have never, ever even considered the possibility of stealing anything since. I also remember her words when she caught me, “What were you thinking?” The truth, of course, was I did not think. I knew better than to take the fudge bar. I also knew mom would never have bought it for me, if I had asked and I wanted what I wanted. Weighed on a lesser scale, it is not too different than David’s behavior.
Part of our daily walk with God, is to examine ourselves to determine if we are in synch with God in all that we say and do. When we find we may have moved away from God in some of our actions or attitudes, we need to ask God to forgive us and welcome us back into the loving arms of God’s chains.*
Prayer: Lord, I do need thee every hour, need you to help me be fully me and not someone who can be easily led astray by the temptations of life. Thank you for your loving arms and for your chains that I have chosen to claim. Amen.