February 10, 2008

Honest introspection and truthful self-awareness I fear, are far from the thinking of many people. These instruments of insight are far too painful and require far too much discipline for the unserious. Ours is a day of self-exaltation, not self-inspection. We want what we want when we want it and the thought of possibly laying aside the dreams we have dreamed for ourselves is simply unthinkable. We have money to make and homes to build and boats to buy, not to mention credit cards to maintain and sights to see.

All this being said we come to king David of ancient Israel. He had it made. He had wealth and a temple and servants. You name it and David had it. He also had lust in his heart, a lust that caught him totally off guard one day. The next thing you know this man who had it all found himself in bed with another man's wife, got her pregnant, and arranged for her husband to come back from war in hopes he would sleep with his wife and that everyone would then conclude the husband was the father. Then everything would be hunky-dory. The plan didn't work so David sent the husband to the front lines in hopes that he would die in battle. This would free the wife to remarry. Then everything would be hunky-dory. This plan worked and the deceit was underway, with everyone but God.

Sometimes God can be so inconvenient, always calling for truthfulness the way He does. This time God sends a prophet into the David's presence and the prophet reveals the sin in David's heart, daring to speak the truth to him.

Here a remarkable thing happens. David receives the truth, chooses not to run from it, and enters into a time of honest and truthful self-inspection. He pleads for forgiveness and even asks that God would cleanse his life.

Suddenly we see a different David. The truth has found him out, and he owns it, prayerfully asking God, "Create in me a pure heart… Restore to me the joy of your salvation" (Ps. 51:10, 12).

May God help us not to run away from truth but to run to it. We, too, are broken and flawed but, like David, we can choose for God. By His grace, we can choose for God. We are under no obligation to choose against God. Let us hear the truth, and be what truth enables us to be.