Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love. According to Your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against You, and You only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgments. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being, and You teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
(Vs. 1-6. Italics mine)
I have been grieved like all of America since the young man killed the theatergoers in Aurora, Colorado, last week. Friends and relatives say he is quiet, closed off. In fact, no one seems to know him. Really. But clearly, beneath the scholarly exterior and shy demeanor lurked a dangerously angry person. His secret heart somehow shriveled into evil. Who knew?
David, of course, wrote this psalm after Nathan pointed out his secret sins: Adultery with Bathsheba that left her pregnant and the subsequent murder of her husband, Uriah, to cover David's butt. David is sitting alone, maybe on the palace terrace, Bathsheba now his bride whose abdomen is rounding with the child of a king. Life has gone on for David. Maybe he thinks Israel cannot count. But it won't be long before they realize Bathsheba must have been pregnant before Uriah died. Her husband was killed in battle, though. After David tried twice to trick him to come home and lie with his wife. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
But this day the sun was warm on David's face and the storm seemed to pass. Sorry about what happened to Uriah, but that is the nature of war. At least David will take good care of his poor wife. Always down there, though, in his interior was the knowledge that he was terribly, terribly wrong. Being king did not entitle him to adultery and murder. Pride made him try to cover his tracks. A king who decided to stay home when his troops went to war. Took another man's wife on a lazy day at the office. Didn't love her. Just thought she was pretty bathing there on the roof. Wasn't expecting a pregnancy. Complications from the fulfillment of his fantasy. He was a "man after God's own heart." How could David let others know he had blown it big time? Anyway, other things had come by this day to fill his time and mind, for kings are busy.
Nathan, the trusted counsel to David and a prophet of God, was instructed by the Lord to expose David's secret sin. Thinking Nathan was a little sick to his stomach before this confrontation. On two levels. David is king and could have his head for the audacity of the charge. But there is the outrage of the sin. How could he so betray his God and his people?
"There was a rich man and a poor one living in the same city. The rich man, of course, had lots of lambs and flocks. The poor man, only a little lamb he loved like his own daughter. Fed it table scraps, laughed while it played with his kids, and held it in his arms while it slept," Nathan regaled.
"A traveler came to visit the rich man and was in need of supper. But the rich man didn't want to kill from his own flocks for dinner, so he took the only lamb of the poor man, slaughtered it and ate it."
"Oh, my God!" screamed David. "Has the man no pity? He deserves to die for this! Make him restore fourfold to the poor man!"
"You are the man!"
Then Nathan pronounces the Lord's judgment against David. A harsh prescience of family discord that will never cease. The death of the child Bathsheba carried. "For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun," declared the Lord through Nathan.
On his face. Emptied of pride as the confession of his sin vomits from him. "I have sinned against the Lord!" Tears of remorse cannot save his newborn. Though his own life is spared, it will never be what it had once been. He forfeited the favor that had once crowned him. David had debased his God when he chose to commit adultery then murder. Something had gone deeply wrong in his inward being.
Had he forgotten why he was king? So much distance had grown from the time the Lord called a little shepherd to kill a lion, a bear and a giant? Running from Saul was ancient history. The crown on his head might have gone to his head, leaving him feeling entitled to whatever he wanted whenever he called. Dangerous territory.
The stunning thing is that, though he suffered consequences for his deplorable behavior, his God still adored him. Knew the heart He had given him still beat beneath the hubris of his sinfulness. Called out to David there and the king fell to his face in repentance. Pled with God to save Bathsheba's baby-- her loss now doubled. There must have been some relief in the secret life coming clean. Not having the invisible barrier between David and his God anymore. Not living a lie. How would the story have been different if David had not lived the secret? If he had confessed from the beginning his sin with Bathsheba and not murdered to cover it up?
Secrets. Even small ones create shame. Shame is the dark knight of our interior, sabotaging our clearer needs, stabbing vulnerability in the heart, and draping us with a persona that is a lie. If we let the secret life rule us in shame, we will act shamefully. It is a plan of the enemy to destroy us and others this way. Chances are our secret lives are not really that well hidden, anyway. Someone knows. And He will expose it to the light of the sun because He won't live in shame with us. Better we fall on our faces before He confronts us. Better our sin be confessed to Him alone than that He must point His finger as Nathan did and bring our house down with us.
For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against You, and You only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgments. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being, and You teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
(Vs. 1-6. Italics mine)
I have been grieved like all of America since the young man killed the theatergoers in Aurora, Colorado, last week. Friends and relatives say he is quiet, closed off. In fact, no one seems to know him. Really. But clearly, beneath the scholarly exterior and shy demeanor lurked a dangerously angry person. His secret heart somehow shriveled into evil. Who knew?
David, of course, wrote this psalm after Nathan pointed out his secret sins: Adultery with Bathsheba that left her pregnant and the subsequent murder of her husband, Uriah, to cover David's butt. David is sitting alone, maybe on the palace terrace, Bathsheba now his bride whose abdomen is rounding with the child of a king. Life has gone on for David. Maybe he thinks Israel cannot count. But it won't be long before they realize Bathsheba must have been pregnant before Uriah died. Her husband was killed in battle, though. After David tried twice to trick him to come home and lie with his wife. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
But this day the sun was warm on David's face and the storm seemed to pass. Sorry about what happened to Uriah, but that is the nature of war. At least David will take good care of his poor wife. Always down there, though, in his interior was the knowledge that he was terribly, terribly wrong. Being king did not entitle him to adultery and murder. Pride made him try to cover his tracks. A king who decided to stay home when his troops went to war. Took another man's wife on a lazy day at the office. Didn't love her. Just thought she was pretty bathing there on the roof. Wasn't expecting a pregnancy. Complications from the fulfillment of his fantasy. He was a "man after God's own heart." How could David let others know he had blown it big time? Anyway, other things had come by this day to fill his time and mind, for kings are busy.
Nathan, the trusted counsel to David and a prophet of God, was instructed by the Lord to expose David's secret sin. Thinking Nathan was a little sick to his stomach before this confrontation. On two levels. David is king and could have his head for the audacity of the charge. But there is the outrage of the sin. How could he so betray his God and his people?
"There was a rich man and a poor one living in the same city. The rich man, of course, had lots of lambs and flocks. The poor man, only a little lamb he loved like his own daughter. Fed it table scraps, laughed while it played with his kids, and held it in his arms while it slept," Nathan regaled.
"A traveler came to visit the rich man and was in need of supper. But the rich man didn't want to kill from his own flocks for dinner, so he took the only lamb of the poor man, slaughtered it and ate it."
"Oh, my God!" screamed David. "Has the man no pity? He deserves to die for this! Make him restore fourfold to the poor man!"
"You are the man!"
Then Nathan pronounces the Lord's judgment against David. A harsh prescience of family discord that will never cease. The death of the child Bathsheba carried. "For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun," declared the Lord through Nathan.
On his face. Emptied of pride as the confession of his sin vomits from him. "I have sinned against the Lord!" Tears of remorse cannot save his newborn. Though his own life is spared, it will never be what it had once been. He forfeited the favor that had once crowned him. David had debased his God when he chose to commit adultery then murder. Something had gone deeply wrong in his inward being.
Had he forgotten why he was king? So much distance had grown from the time the Lord called a little shepherd to kill a lion, a bear and a giant? Running from Saul was ancient history. The crown on his head might have gone to his head, leaving him feeling entitled to whatever he wanted whenever he called. Dangerous territory.
The stunning thing is that, though he suffered consequences for his deplorable behavior, his God still adored him. Knew the heart He had given him still beat beneath the hubris of his sinfulness. Called out to David there and the king fell to his face in repentance. Pled with God to save Bathsheba's baby-- her loss now doubled. There must have been some relief in the secret life coming clean. Not having the invisible barrier between David and his God anymore. Not living a lie. How would the story have been different if David had not lived the secret? If he had confessed from the beginning his sin with Bathsheba and not murdered to cover it up?
Secrets. Even small ones create shame. Shame is the dark knight of our interior, sabotaging our clearer needs, stabbing vulnerability in the heart, and draping us with a persona that is a lie. If we let the secret life rule us in shame, we will act shamefully. It is a plan of the enemy to destroy us and others this way. Chances are our secret lives are not really that well hidden, anyway. Someone knows. And He will expose it to the light of the sun because He won't live in shame with us. Better we fall on our faces before He confronts us. Better our sin be confessed to Him alone than that He must point His finger as Nathan did and bring our house down with us.
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