Why did David, a godly man, go to the extent of killing Uriah after sleeping with his wife? Was it enough that he had slept with his wife and made her pregnant? Why did he have to go to that extent and cause Uriah more harm...? Sometimes back I found myself asking such questions. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I realized why David had to do all that. I have come to realize that many times as Christians, we desire to remain holy, pure and blameless. Although our greatest desire is to please God, we also have a desire to appear holy to others. We want to be seen as good examples to others and we don’t want to be with blame.
However, looking at this episode in David’s life, I realize from the beginning, everything was wrong. The bible says in 2 Samuel 11 that it was the time when kings went to war together with their soldiers. However, we see that David did not go to war and it was during this time that he went up the roof and saw a naked woman taking a bath. ‘Being of the flesh’, David decided to keep looking, to call for her and he slept with her and she became pregnant. However, we see that when David realized that he had done the wrong thing he tried to cover his mistake (please man/ try be holy by his own strength). He called home Uriah home hoping that Uriah would sleep with his wife but the plan did not work. This is where we see David deciding to have Uriah killed and just as he planned, Uriah died and David took the widow.
This seemed ok to David until when it came to his true realization through the man of God that he had really sinned not just against man but also against God. To David, the death of Uriah was a solution because his sin of adultery had been covered and no one would know that he had done it. It was a secret between him and Bathsheba. However, it wasn’t unknown to God. David being a man of God had another power/ authority to answer to. This was God who had not made Himself known to David but was also the reason for his success in life, the God who had made him king and won battles for him. This realization brought David to his knees in repentance.
Looking at that whole episode in David’s life, I see many of us. Many times I have made a promise not to sin against God, to remain holy. I try so many times and I keep on breaking these promises. We always have it all wrong from the beginning. We disobey and put ourselves in compromising situations and when we sin, instead of repenting, we choose to cover our sins and try to look holy to the outsides. However, deep inside, the spirit of God convicts us of our failure. Because of this, we begin to condemn ourselves and see ourselves as failures. This causes us to get hopeless in trying to be holy.However, we always go back to God in repentance because we know we have no other better place to be except to be with him. We desire to be holy but we have it all wrong about holiness.
The bible says that we were born sinners and we needed a savior to save us. We always have the spirit and the flesh fighting against each other in us. This is never about whether we are spiritually mature or not. In the book of Romans, Paul talks about doing what he doesn’t want to do and this is what we always face. Our greatest desire, just like Paul, is always to walk in the ways of God and not to give in to sin. However, we need to realize that it is not in our power to do right by our own. We need to realize that we did not save ourselves; we are not the ones who require holiness from ourselves. However, God is the one who requires us to be holy. Many times I have fallen and broken my promises to remain holy and blameless. However, I thank God for He has made me realize that I can’t be holy on my own, that I need Him to help me. Therefore my prayer has changed from “I want to be holy” to “God be the holiness in me that you require from me”. This is because I know that when He becomes holiness in me, though He will have to change so much in me which might be painful, I will not require to struggle to be holy. I pray that this will be your prayer too.
God bless you!
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