Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Samuel 12-13.

I usually try to stay away from writing about the “obvious” lessons in a passage, but David’s reaction to the illness and death of his son born from his adulterous affair with Bathsheba stuck with me today.  Actually, David’s entire reaction to be confronted about his affair with Bathsheba sticks with me.  First, when confronted about what he did with Bathsheba and to Uriah the Hittite, he did not try to make excuses for his affair with Bathsheba, or make a blustery defense of arranging Uriah’s death.  Instead, David humbly confesses that he had sinned against God.  Then when the son of that affair got sick, David fasted and laid on the ground wearing only sackcloth.  He did this for seven days, refusing to eat or do anything else.  On the seventh day, when he learned that the child had died, he got up, cleaned himself, dressed, and ate.  When asked why he acted this way, David 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.’ ²³ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again?”  The point here is that all too often we wait until after it is too late to express our desire to be with our loved ones, or to seek God’s intervention.  Instead, we should follow David’s example and throw ourselves on God’s mercy before bad things happen.  The lesson I see here for me is this: I foresee bad things coming for many people, now is the time for me to fast and pray for God to change the course of judgement I see Him sending.  Perhaps, He will change His mind, perhaps He will show me how to get people to turn to Him and change the path they are on.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.