Road Trippin With Rachael

Who?

Who is David? David is probably one of the most famous of the family tree of Jesus, having been immortalized as the youth who took down the giant Goliath of Gath. He also happens to have been etched in marble by Leonardo DaVinci.

But David, like we have seen with many other members of Jesus’ family tree is not a straightforward individual. He is the great-grandson of Ruth, he was raised as a shepherd and was the youngest of a large family. He spent a large amount of his late teens and early adult life walking a tightrope in the court of King Saul after David was annointed the next king by the Judge, Samuel. He spent over a decade on the run from Saul, later gaining the thrown after Saul’s death.

Even through David is often depicted as being an amazing person and a man who was after the heart of God – David was also deeply flawed. Many of David’s sins deal with his interpersonal relationships. Just to give an overview of how poor David was at relationships: He kills one of his closest freinds to hide the fact he coerist his wife (we can call it adultery all we want, but could Bathsheba really say no?), he ignores his son having incestuous thoughts about his younger sister, does nothing with said son raped sister, does nothing when another son kills the rapist-brother, keeps his eyes closed to his sons trying to become the king (while he is still alive), and his inability to make decisions regarding his family lead to him losing the respect of his men. David’s poor decisions lead to a lot of familial wounds that were never given the opportunity to heal, and those sinful actions would continuously come back to hurt him and his family.  You can read all about David in I Samuel 16-I Kings 2.

What Do We Learn From David?

In my opinion, I think what we are really able to learn from David is that there is forgiveness and redemption. David is very much a picture of a whole person. He is a man who was afr the heart of God, but he was also a man who committed horrible, horrible sins. 

Through his life, David penned the majority of the Psalms, and through them we are able to see and learn how we can come to God. No matter what emotions or concoction of emotions we have inside us, God is able to take those emotions. We see that it is okay to be sad, to be depressed, to cry out in anger, greif, sadness, and joy. It it possible to be growing in our relationship to God and pursuing him, and still royally mess up. We see through David’s life that there is forgiveness of sins when we are willing to face them, but that doesn’t mean that we are free of the consequences of those sins, nor does it mean that others are not hurt by those sins. There are long lasting outcomes of the choices we make. 

The older I get, the more I am horrified by some of the things that David did, but I also come away more and more encouraged that no matter how much I mess up, no matter how alone I might feel, no matter how badly I mess up, there is redemption for my sins and God is there waiting for me to turn while he pursues me.