To be fully HUMAN — A Daily Reflection

 

 

Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

    His servants asked him, "Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!"

    He answered, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.’   But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me."

    Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The LORD loved him; (NIV)

 

David had really made a mess of things.  He had purposely sinned.  He had bedded another man’s wife, and then had cold-bloodedly caused the man to be killed to cover his own sin.  In both instances, David had calculated and planned his sins and then deliberately committed them.  He had hardened his own heart and had turned away from God and toward his own lust and desire.  When confronted by Nathan, guilt was heaped upon guilt by what David had done.  When the child conceived out of wedlock with Bathsheba lay ill and dying, David wept and mourned and begged God for the child’s life.  When God’s judgment was that the child would die, David didn’t continue to mourn.  Instead, he got up, bathed, dressed in new clothing and got on with the business of his life.  God had given David a fresh start.  So David didn’t dwell on the past… he didn’t allow feelings of guilt to bog him down.  God had forgiven and forgotten his sin.  And although David would never be able to forget, he didn’t dwell on the past either.  He stepped out anew, moving forward in victory. 

 

When you and I sin, the Holy Spirit convicts us.  He reveals to us how evil our sin is in the sight of God… and we feel guilty.  So we turn to God, broken and contrite, angry with ourselves for doing what we’ve done, ashamed to even talk to God and filled with fear of what God could do to us.  We beg for forgiveness and turn away from those actions that pull us farther and farther away from God.  And God, by both forgiving AND forgetting our sin, gives us a fresh start… a new lease on life… a brand new beginning.  He removes our sins as far from us “as east is from west.”  Think about that.  How far is east from west?  If you begin traveling north, eventually you’ll go south, and the reverse is also true.  But if you begin traveling east, you will never, ever go west.  And, again, the reverse is true.  Amazing distance, isn’t it?

 

So, like He did for David, God will open the way for us to live the kind of life He wants us to live.  So what do we do?  We keep playing those old tapes, reminding ourselves again and again of how rotten we are.  Unable – or unwilling – to forget, we reject the fresh start God gives us, unable to believe that God could forget, much less forgive, what we’ve done.  And as those old tapes play and replay, we soon become convinced that we’re stuck.  That’s just the way we are.  We can’t change.  And before long, we have something else to feel guilty about. 

 

If you have recognized your sin and turned to God for forgiveness, stop playing those old tapes.  Stop allowing guilt to seep back in where you’ve found forgiveness.  Your forgiven sins are lost in a sea of forgetfulness… God no longer remembers them or holds them against you!  So, allow the Lord to give you the fresh start you need.  Stop looking back.  Allow Jesus to lead you forward in victory.