Seeking a Heart Like His – Through Failure

See 2 Samuel 11 & 12

Sometimes even when we get it right, we are only a few small steps away from falling. And so it was with David. Just a short time after all his patient waiting, after his wisdom and grace in handling the transition to power, he finds himself in a different place. This place was one of complacency, of power, of pride – one where the king who goes out to battle with his men decides instead to stay home. The king who kept his eyes on God now puts them on a beautiful woman. Lust sets in, and then adultery, and then murder. The spiral downward is astonishingly quick and the callousness in David’s heart shocking. How could this man after God’s own heart fall so quick and so hard?

I was at a student retreat with work this past weekend. We were talking about leadership and people that have been leaders in our lives that have let us down, that have suffered tremendous moral failures. The disappointment and hurt in the stories was palpable. There is no sugar coating, no excuses that make it okay, just raw pain and wrongdoing. It’s like a sucker punch that knocks us on our feet. Talk of forgiveness is difficult, the bitterness real, and the trust broken.

As I was thinking about how to respond to the stories these students were sharing, it took me back to the place of failure in my life, when I let God down and those around me. I remember the guilt and the shame, the lies and the pain. The disappointment that just hung in the air. Nothing I could do to change it, to reverse it, to make it better.

I reminded my students of that, that any of us can find ourselves there. There is no immunity from failure, no immunization that protects us. Temptation can find us and sin can all too easily entrap us. We are all sinners in need of a Savior and in need of grace and forgiveness. There is no time when we are more aware of that need than when we utterly fail.

The story of David’s fall is humbling in so many ways. It is scary to see the fall of a great and godly man. But the hopeful and reassuring part of the story is that it wasn’t the end of David’s story. It didn’t disqualify him from being a godly man. In spite of the sin, in spite of the loss and ugliness and horror of his actions, God still loved David. He confronted David and sought Him out, not letting David hide from his sin. And when David repented, He forgave and restored David. There were steep consequences that David would have to endure, but there were still incredible moments ahead for him. Some of the most beautiful prayers come after David’s sin with Bathsheba – prayers of restoration and forgiveness, prayers leading Israel in praise and preparation for the temple and for Solomon as king, prayers of both humility and wisdom.

Maybe part of what made David a man after God’s own heart was not that he never failed but rather even in the time of his worst failure, his heart remained tender and open to correction, aware of the need for his Shepherd.

Seeking a Heart Like His – Through Success

It’s finally David’s time. Saul is dead. Israel needs a new king – and David is uniquely prepared for the role. 15 chapters and many, many years have passed since Samuel anointed David, a young shepherd boy, to be the next king of Israel. David has patiently waited and trusted in God, through the running, through the hiding, through all the trials… and now it is finally his time.

I think there is no more dangerous time that when we finally feel it is our time. When we get the big job, when God entrusts us with great responsibility and great ministry, when things are suddenly coming together and it is good, all good. Success finally comes and it feels good after the hard work, after the waiting, after all the prep work, all the paying our dues – it is finally our time, time to step into God’s purpose for our lives, time to see the fruits of our labors, time to…. Time to get full of ourselves, to think we deserve it, that we made it happen; time to become arrogant and prideful, time to get caught up in the money, in the reputation, in the spotlight or recognition, time that we can easily forget about God and forget that He is the One that led us there.

Yet, David doesn’t respond that way. It is finally David’s time and he approaches it with wisdom, humility, and grace. He is told that Saul is dead. Instead of rejoicing that his archenemy was out of the way, he leads Judah in mourning for the king. He seeks God’s guidance about his next steps. Instead of demanding respect and forcing the kingship, he works to win the respect and trust of Israel – reaching out to the men of Jabesh-Gilead and making peace with Abner, one of Israel’s leaders (2 Samuel 3). His confidence remains in God and God brings him favor. “David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Israel grew weaker and weaker” (2 Samuel 3:1b). God paves the way for David to become king. In His time, the shepherd boy becomes the shepherd-king of Israel. The tender heart of David, the one who handled this transition with such wisdom, humility, and grace – that tender heart, I think, is part of what made David a man after God’s own heart.

I want to be a woman after His heart – that’s what this whole study has been about for me, seeking a heart like His. Sometimes though, I don’t handle success well. There have been times in my life when I have felt I am exactly where I am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. I feel myself starting to step into God’s purposes in my life, I see Him starting to use me. But then I get I get overly confident. I don’t wait on Him, and I take my eyes off of Him. I start to see my reflection in the mirror, instead of His, and stop to gaze and enjoy the view. Before I know it, I start sinking in the waves and falling on my face. Oh, to walk in that humility like David did, to keep my confidence on God alone, and to let Him be glorified, to see His reflection in my life and to let others see Him at work – then I will be able to handle success well and to have a heart like His.

True Love

I so wanted to believe your words
I so wanted to trust your love
But I guarded my heart. I couldn’t let you in.

And yet you whispered how much you care.
You sent me flowers and called to me through the rain
The storm rages yet you were calm in the midst of the pain
As I flirt with others and ignore you.

Others say those three words, but they fall as empty shells, a counterfeit truth
If they only knew me, they wouldn’t love me - they couldn’t, they wouldn’t.
Could you? Would you?
You who know me best and see me at my worst.

I am drawn to your whisper, to your care, to your presence
I am scared to trust yet scared to walk away
You never walk away. You always seem there.

I so want to believe you, to trust you, to love you.
I so want to be loved by you. I so want you to be true.
So I come to you. I lay my soul bare & open my heart
I hear you say, “I love you” and the fear departs.

I have so little to give – the hurts, the past, the scars so deep.
You wipe away my tears, though, and in your arms I finally sleep.
Your love is steady and true. It doesn’t change. Ever.
Your love is powerful and new. It changes me. Forever.

Eight years since, I have never been the same.
I give you my heart, my life, my being
Because you first gave me yours - and a life worth living.
I love you, Lord. Thank you for loving me.

In honor of the eight-year anniversary of my baptism, 3/21/2004, the day I let the love of Christ change my life forever.

The Bittersweet Truth

Warning – For those of you with a sweet tooth, this post may cause unintended harm. It may interfere with your ability to derive pleasure from some of your favorite foods and may limit your desired consumption levels of sweets. Read at your own risk but for your own benefit!

A couple of months ago, I signed up for a wellness program at work called Naturally Slim. I started it because I wanted to eat better and get rid of some bad habits – like skipping meals in lieu of raiding the candy dish at work constantly. One of the first challenges the program laid out was to avoid sweets and limit sugar for three weeks. I thought I had signed up for the wrong program! I love my cookies and brownies and candy, my sweet tea and Dr Pepper. I’ve never even considered giving those up. Those are some of my favorite foods. However, since it was just a temporary request – three weeks – I decided to give it a try. Then I was sure I would go right back to my old habits.

Little did I know that this journey would become something else entirely and that I wouldn’t want to go back to my old habits.
Week one, every meeting I go to, there are sweets available, and they are calling my name. Cookies, brownies, sodas, you name it. I am so tempted. I am craving them, but I resist. I have to see this experiment through.

Week two, I survived the initial withdrawal and start to be okay without them. I sense that I have more energy and the cravings are not nearly as intense. I can do this… but again, why would anyone want to do this long-term?

Week three, I completely have this under control, so now I can cheat and have a cookie, right? LOL Well, I do cheat and have a cookie, but I am shocked that it doesn’t taste good to me. It wasn’t even worth cheating for. What?! So, of course, I have to experiment again, so I have a Dr Pepper, one of my favorite drinks – it wasn’t good either. What?! My tastes are really changing. I’m completely surprised at how quickly I lost a taste for some of my favorite sweets.

Week four, I go to the dentist and I get the best report ever. My hygienist is completely surprised at how good my teeth look – I’ve never had that happen before. Then I see a report on the news that sugar causes the mouth to release acid which in turn leads to tooth decay. Now I knew that sugar leads to tooth decay, but I didn’t know the acid immediately starts eating at your teeth as soon as you eat sugar. I always thought it was more of a long-term effect. Could my good dentist report be in part because I have reduced my sugar intake? Coincidence or not – I’ll take it.

Week five, I go to the store and fit into a size 6 dress – the first time that has happened in years! (See center picture above.) I feel much better, have more energy, and starting to wonder exactly how bad all this sugar has been for me. I had no idea of all the consequences. I start to get angry that no one told me sooner.

About 7-8 years ago, I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic. My doctor was befuddled because I didn’t exhibit any of the normal risk factors for diabetes. He asked me about my diet, but it didn’t seem like I ate a lot of sugar. I never eat more than one doughnut, for example, and I don’t eat multiple candy bars at once. I don’t do a lot of the things that seem like a high sugar intake. Did you know, though, that a can of soda has 10 tsp of sugar, 17 tsp in a 20 oz bottle? I am a runner, and chocolate milk is one of the best post-run drinks and one of my favorites. Did you know though that a pint of chocolate milk has 54g of sugar? These numbers astound me. Not because I didn’t know that foods have sugar – I just didn’t realize how much and how pervasive it is. Baby food even has 4 tsp of sugar. Really?

All these years later, it makes much more sense to me. I had no idea I was as addicted to sugar as I was, and I had no idea how much sugar I was consuming in my diet without knowing it. I didn’t know that my body couldn’t manage the amount of insulin my body was producing to keep up with my sugar intake.

All the low fat foods that are marketed as being healthy – not so, they just compensate sugar for fat – and sugar is just as bad if not worse. Plus, the average person on a low fat diet consumes 400-500 more calories than someone not on a low fat diet. We tend to eat more maybe because we give ourselves credit for the “low fat choices.” I am angry at myself for not thinking it mattered when I ate multiple sweets a day, when I thought I deserved it. I am angry that sugar is so interwoven in our foods and our culture that avoiding it is really hard – that our office candy bowl is almost always full, that hospitality is just necessarily linked with food, that we market holidays like Valentine’s Day, Halloween, and Easter with unlimited sweets, sugary confections that are not really a gift but a curse. The trick is on us, dear friends.

It doesn’t mean that we have to give sweets up entirely. That is what I was afraid of when I started this journey, and I wanted to opt out of that option very quickly. What it does mean is that I need to pay attention to my sugar intake. I need to save the sweets for the special occasions not the everyday, multiple times of the day staple. And when I do eat sugar, I need to balance it out with protein which helps the body process it. Even with natural sugars, like apples, are much healthier when eaten with protein like peanut butter. Who knew?

Well, now I know the bittersweet truth about sugar. I plan to keep my distance and only have an occasional fling with a good dessert. I am breaking off the intimate relationship. The three week challenge was over awhile ago, but I don’t want to go back to my old habits. I can live without my daily Dr Pepper and even my cookies, because in the end, I can now say they are not worth it and that, my friend, is the bittersweet truth.

For more information on the Naturally Slim program, check out their website here.

Seeking a Heart Like His - Through Grief

For those of you who don’t know, I am currently doing a Beth Moore Bible study on David. This study is so rich and has prompted my thinking in so many ways about what it meant for David to be a man after God’s own heart and what it means to me to be a woman after God’s own heart.

It’s been hard to find time for writing lately, so it’s been awhile since I’ve caught you up on David. So much has happened – we last left David in the difficult time of waiting, waiting to be king, waiting to step into God’s purpose in his life, and running from King Saul.

After years on the run, David finds himself almost at home in enemy territory, the land of the Philistines (1 Samuel 27). When the Philistines prepare to fight Israel, David and his men prepare to join them (1 Samuel 29). The king trusts David, but the other Philistine leaders do not. They send David & his men back home – thankfully. Can you imagine fighting against the people you are supposed to lead? What kind of political campaign would that create?

But when David & his men return to Ziklag, they find tragedy. Their wives, sons & daughters have all been taken; the city of Ziklag was burned to the ground. Nothing was left. Sheer devastation. Sheer grief.

“So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep” (1 Samuel 30:4).

At this point, could things get any worse for David? God is supposed to have good plans for his life, but he’s been on the run, Saul has been trying to kill him, and now his family is taken from him, and he and his men are exhausted and grief-stricken.
There are moments when all we can do is weep, when words seem completely inadequate, when our world comes crashing down, loss sets in and everything changes.

In those moments how comforting it is to know that we have a God that weeps along with us (see John 11:35). Even when Jesus knew the end of the story, even though He knew the good plans God had in store, He wept right along with Mary & Martha over the loss of their brother. In the time of our deepest grief and mourning, Jesus is right there with us, “a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3a). He shares our grief and our struggles. He doesn’t leave us alone.

And He didn’t leave David alone. “David found strength in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6b). David cried out to Him and God responded by giving Him strength and wisdom, and God led David into battle, giving him victory over the Amalekites (the bad guys) and freeing all the hostages.

A chapter later, David loses his best friend Jonathan and mourns the death of King Saul. The grief kept piling on. But God was always present, and He continued to give David strength. He is always present with us. And He cares. He evens weeps along with us. God is good. He works all things out for good (Romans 8:28), but we have to trust Him even when we can’t see the good, even in the midst of our grief.

This has been so true in my life. Moving is a different kind of grief, and for months after moving to Texas I was overwhelmed by the sense of loss in my life – friends, family, community. But God gave me strength and His presence has been so real in my life. I’ve now been here a year and I can see how He works it all out for good. He is still writing the story, but it’s a good story, even through the challenging times.

How has God strengthened you during times of grief? Have you felt Him crying with you?

Be encouraged. “I tell you the truth…you will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy” (John 16:20).

Next, we follow David to the throne and to success and praise... Stay tuned! I have a lot of catching up to do.