Psalm 103, 2 Samuel 11-12, Psalm 51, 139, 1 Kings 3
Another day with David... interesting that it took only 6 days to get from Adam to David and then we read about him for 2 straight days. I think whoever made this "tour" likes David or something. Moses and David seem to be the main characters of the Bible so far. Luckily, we will be reading about the life of Jesus for about a week (I just looked ahead).
But the main story today, is the story of David and Bathsheba and the consequences it produced. If you don't know the story, here it is in a nut shell:
David sees Bathsheba. David likes Bathsheba. David sleeps with Bathsheba. Bathsheba gets pregnant. David kills Bathsheba's husband. David marries Bathsheba to cover his tracks. David thinks he is in the clear. Nathan exposes David's sin to the whole nation of Israel. David repents.
David writes the words of Psalm 51 during his time of repentance to God. His words in verse 10 are the words that I have had to say too many times... Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
David realizes that his heart is dirty. He realizes that he can't change his heart. And he begs God in Psalm 51 to change his heart. He begs God to make his heart repentant.
In my life, I see myself coming to God many times asking God to change my heart. I have a dirty, disgusting heart that needs to be purified. I am amazed that Keyla chooses to love me sometimes. I mean God is love... I know God loves me. But Keyla has a choice, and she chooses to love me.
It is something that I will never understand.
I think God put Keyla in my life to show me some of His love for me. His love that never ends. I can't even begin to comprehend what that means.
I've heard that when you become a parent you understand what God's love truly is. You love your child so much that they could never do anything to change that love... but I don't have kids yet.
I know this post is very scatter-brained... I'm sorry for that. I'm still trying to figure out what is going on in my head. Good luck to anyone who can put the pieces together and find the direction I took in this post.
i like your scattered thoughts. i like the idea that we can't change our hearts, even if we want to, and that we have to beg God to change our hearts for us.
ReplyDeletei like the thought that the marriage relationship reflects how much Jesus loves His church (us!) - which part of course I knew - but I like the idea that maybe He does so by allowing a human the free choice of loving us (when He, as God, "has" to love us. But in reality, this husband/wife picture just goes to show that God "chooses" to love us too!)
perhaps God created the marriage relationship and the parent/child relationship for just that purpose. or, maybe His love is reflected in any good moment in any human relationship... and in our circumstances... and in creation. maybe His love is poured out all around us all the time, and only in certain moments where we're really looking hard do we really see it.
Maybe it's because we know that we have dirty hearts like David that it is so hard to do the right things. Maybe it's because we know that the light of God's goodness and love will expose our nakedness that we shy away from Him (or put on happy-church faces and pretend like we're close to Him all the time whether or not we actually are). Maybe that's why it sometimes seems like such a struggle to read more of His Word, and even more of a struggle to do the things from the part of His Word that we actually read. Maybe we don't want to face up to what a disgusting, deceitful heart we actually have.
Or maybe that's just me.