Fifty-five years ago, I was a new bride enjoying my honeymoon with my new husband. This month is usually filled with bittersweet memories and a few emotional, teary moments. It has been seven years since Wayne’s death, but it is still a difficult time when our anniversary comes around each year. It’s important to plan something fun to do and this year my friend, Linda and I went to Sight and Sound Theater to see DAVID. It was a great show, as usual at this extraordinary venue.
My favorite part of the show was how they depicted David’s reaction after his sin with Bathsheba. The Bible tells us, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men . . . But David remained in Jerusalem” (2 Samuel 11:1). In this production, David was under much stress and decided he would stay home and sent Joab to lead the Israelite army. (You can read the Biblical account in 2 Samuel 11 and 12.) After David finds out Bathsheba is pregnant, he says, “I can fix this.” That line surprised me but isn’t that what we try to do so often when we sin and reap the consequences. We think we can fix it.
Of course, David couldn’t fix it and that led to the sin of having Uriah killed. Talk about stress! David went from being stressed about king’s business to being stressed by his sinful actions. God sent the prophet, Nathan to David. After David gets angry with the bad man in Nathan’s story, he is confronted with the fact that he, himself is that bad man!
David describes his repentance and God’s forgiveness in Psalm 32:3-5.
“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’ – and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”
David writes his prayer for forgiveness and restoration in Psalm 51.
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 51: 10-12).
I find myself trying to fix my mistakes or sins, just like David. I fret and worry instead of admitting it, to whomever I’ve wronged and to God. David said he had sinned against God and ultimately all sin is against God. God loves us and is waiting to forgive us. David did an awful deed, but God forgave, and David is known as “a man after God’s heart”. I find myself asking: Do I seek God’s heart? Do I pray for a willing spirit to seek God’s plan for my life? Do I remain steadfast in worshipping God with my whole life?
Like David, I cannot fix my life. Only God can.