To be fully HUMAN — A Daily Reflection

2 Samuel 12:1-14 NIV

Nathan had a tough assignment from the Lord.  More than a year had passed since David had gotten into his sin cycle with Bathsheba and Uriah.  By this time, David had done such a good job of suppressing his guilt that when Nathan told him the allegory, David did not recognize himself as the villain.  Nathan probably knew David’s state of mind.  He probably was very aware that David had started on the road to becoming someone who could easily turn completely away from God at any point.  David had chosen the road to sin and destruction.  He had deliberately sinned against God and man.  In this state of mind, his reaction to Nathan’s confrontation could easily have gone against Nathan in a big way.  After all, David had the power to have Nathan imprisoned or killed if he had not reacted favorably to what Nathan had to say.  If I were Nathan, I would have had more than a few butterflies in my stomach at the point of confrontation! 

But Nathan was more than an obedient servant of God; he was also a very wise man.  He didn’t rush in to David and start accusing him of adultery and murder, ranting and raving and shouting his condemnation.  Instead, he chose his moment wisely, then approached the subject in the form of a story.  He knew that there was enough of the “man after God’s own heart” left in David for the king to be angered by this story.  The hard part would be revealing to David that the villain in the story was David himself.  But, because Nathan was wise in his approach, the result was the positive one that God wanted.

Although you and I are rarely faced with life and death confrontations like Nathan, we often find ourselves in situations that are difficult… situations where we must approach someone with a difficult subject.  Whether with a boss, a co-worker, a fellow Christian, a child, a parent or a spouse… no matter who the other person is, if we follow Nathan’s example, we can look for a favorable outcome to the confrontation.  Timing is all important, as we saw in the case of Abigail (1 Samuel 25 NIV) when she chose to wait to confront her husband until he was sober.  How we approach the other person is also important… very important.

If you are faced with a difficult confrontation, pray about it.  Ask God for the right words and the right timing.  Let Him show you the right approach… the one that will help you achieve the right outcome.