The King and I

Oh my--life can get hectic! Here it is Sunday afternoon and it’s the first time I’ve had an opportunity to blog. Well, it’s the first time I’ve taken time; I suppose I have chosen to do other things. Sometimes I complain about my lack of time when the issue is really my lack of efficiency.

I have been trying to organize my photographs from our vacation and want to make an official album using the best ones. That album is at the top of my “must do” list. I have several other “must do” things and quite a few “should do” items. Unfortunately, both categories often fall behind my “want to do” activities.

Speaking of “must do” and “must not do” items, the Rock Group has been studying some of both kinds in 2 Samuel with King David. The first 10 chapters tell of the prosperity of David’s reign. The next 2 describe the danger of too much fame or fortune (read current newspapers), and the last 12 illustrate the decline caused by David's bad choices that God calls “sin.” I haven’t thought this through but it occurs to me that while David was struggling to find God’s plan for him and particularly while he, as king, was seeking to actively live that plan, it was a time of prosperity personally, professionally, and nationally. However, when he stopped climbing and began to coast, he lost it.

“In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war,” David sent his army but he stayed home and wandered around out on the patio. Instead of following his “must do” or “should do” activities, he went for the “want to do” when he saw a beautiful woman. Even after learning she was the wife of his loyal bodyguard (a man willing to taking a bullet for him), he knowingly and willingly committed the sins of adultery and murder.

It goes downhill from there. However, David, in one very important way, was a role model for screw-ups (and we all do mess up at times). David ran TOWARD God rather than away from Him. There was one thing David understood, “where else is there to go?” If we believe that God is who He says He is, where else is there?

I once ran away from home when I was young. I went to a friend’s house to play even though I had been told “No.” When I was finished playing, I only had one place to go. I knew I was in trouble, but I had no other home. Not facing my mother was not an option. If God is, there is nowhere to run or hide from Him. I went home, took my punishment, got my hug afterward, and life went on. Lesson learned!

For my sin as a little girl, there was some pain but no collateral damage. For adults, sin has painful and far-reaching consequences often with devastating collateral damage.

Studying for this lesson, I learned that David wrote Psalm 51 at that time. We used to sing part of it.

♫ “Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
And sustain me with a willing spirit.

David understood that those of us who have been forgiven much can turn and help other runaways find their way back home.

“Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
And sinners will be converted to You.”

Now, about those "must do" items. . .