Today Daily Devotional

As a pastor, I have been present at many deathbeds over the years. Some people knew how to die well, and others did not. Dying well can be one of the best examples of letting go of this broken world and reaching out for God’s hand to bring us to live with him. People witnessing the transition can be changed by it.

David faced many struggles toward the end of his life, and some of those were problems of his own making. Some of the results were tragic and devastating. But when David realized he had done wrong, he repented of his sin, and God showed mercy.

What can we learn from David’s life? For one thing, we can learn from David’s mistakes and try to avoid the terrible sins he committed. But, more importantly, we can trust God to guide us, and we can call on the Lord for mercy and forgiveness.

As David lay dying, he passed along some important advice to his son Solomon, who would be the next king: “Observe what the Lord requires: Walk in obedience to him, and keep his . . . commands.”

God had promised to establish David’s throne (2 Samuel 7), and God kept that promise by sending his Son, Jesus, born as a descendant of David, to be the Savior of the world. As we celebrate Jesus’ coming in the month ahead, let us remember that God is faithful, that he loves us, and that he calls us to share this good news everywhere!

I told the Lord that I was not interested in becoming a pastor. I’d had a dream in which God called me to be a pastor, but I tried to ignore that and focus on other things. A few weeks later, a minister at my church in Chicago preached a sermon about the call of God. I squirmed in my seat. I had not talked with him about this topic at all. After the service, he made a beeline toward me. He asked me what the sermon meant for me. I was stunned that the Lord was able to use him in such a way to get my attention.

Nathan was David’s pastor. Nathan knew David pretty well. He knew his secrets. He knew his personality. He knew that accusing or coaxing David would not work. But he knew that David would listen to a story. Stories bypass our defense mechanisms to deflect and defeat rational arguments. David listened to Nathan’s power-play story and saw the villain for what he was.

Then Nathan called him out as the villain, saying, “You are the man!” And suddenly David had to face the truth about himself and what he had done to Bathsheba and Uriah. What’s more, the child born to Bathsheba would die, and calamity would come to David’s household. These consequences happened to David because he had treated God with contempt.

David likely had a lot of time on his hands as he stayed in Jerusalem rather than leading his armies to fight the Ammonites. Though he was a warrior, David seemed not to have much appetite for battle at this time.

Late one evening he went out for a walk on the roof of the palace, and he saw a woman bathing. Could David have closed his eyes and walked back inside? Yes. Why did he linger, watching a woman who was not his wife? Why did David send for her even after he learned that she was married to Uriah, one of his top soldiers?

David had become used to having power, and he seems to have thought he was entitled to do as he pleased. He was the king. No one said no to him.

In this story we see that David lost touch with his humanity and that he dehumanized people who got in his way.

One bad decision led to another, and another—and eventually David put Uriah on the front lines of battle so that he would be killed. Then David brought Bathsheba, who was now pregnant, to the palace to be his wife.

But God was displeased with what David had done.

Every decision shapes our heart for service for God or for ourselves.

Social psychologist Nour Kteily has said, “Many people strip each other of humanity with a shocking lack of self-awareness. . . . Dehumanization silences empathy” (Jamil Zaki, The War for Kindness).

David could have destroyed all of Saul’s family after becoming the king over Israel. But he didn’t.

It’s remarkable that David chose to act with grace instead of malice. As he tried to do “what was just and right for all his people,” David honored his friendship with Jonathan and showed mercy to the house of Saul.

Through a servant of Saul’s household, David learned that Mephibosheth, a son of Jonathan, had survived and that he was lame in both feet.

Showing kindness to Mephibo­sheth must have turned some heads among David’s subjects. People were likely shocked when David restored all of Saul’s land to Mephibosheth and invited him to eat at the king’s table.

In this way David went beyond the boundaries of friendship with Jonathan’s son. Despite his disability and his tarnished pedigree, Mephibosheth was included “as one of the king’s sons.” David showed kindness that went beyond tolerance. David knew what dehumanization had done to him, and he aimed to live God’s way instead.

In the book A Grace Revealed Jerry Sittser tells about the ­tragic deaths of his wife, mother, and daughter in an auto accident. He wondered what could come out of such a horrific ­ordeal. He settled on redemption as the word that brought him hope: “[God] wants the harsh conditions [of life] to shape us and eventually the whole world into something extraordinarily beautiful. Redemption promises to transform, so completely.”

David endured family squabbles, death threats, and many military battles before he experienced a time of rest and peace as Israel’s second king. Through it all, he knew “the Lord was with him.” And now the Lord had made a promise that his kingdom would endure and his throne would be established forever. The king knew he had to obey God’s Word and seek to follow God’s will, reminding his people ­every step of the way. David knew that Israel was “the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself and to make a name for himself.” God was working to make something out of David’s life and out of this nation for his good purposes all the nations.

Similarly, we are never beyond the redemptive work of David’s descendant Jesus in his desire to make something out of us today.

King David had time to reflect on things after his palace was built and God had given him “rest from all his enemies around him.” Maybe he felt a tinge of shame that the home of God’s ark of the covenant was merely a tent.

Through the prophet Nathan, though, God revealed that he had bigger plans to share with his servant.

David’s (and our) plans are often much too small. God told Nathan that nothing in the heavens above or on the earth below could be big enough to house the Lord. He is the God who moves with his people wherever they might go, wherever they might be. Actually, he is the God who is everywhere at once. How could a mere building be the Lord’s residence?

In the book Leap Over the Wall, Eugene Peterson notes that God is the first-person subject of 23 verbs in the message that he gave Nathan to share with David. The Lord is the active, working, speaking, being, promising, establishing, eternal God who is faithful forever.

God promised that his love would never leave David. The Lord’s promise to be the father of his offspring would be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ as the heir to David’s throne. The statement “I will be his father, and he will be my son” set the stage for the coming of Jesus as God’s Son, our Savior. That’s real love.

Michal had grown up in the house of Saul, Israel’s first king. Maybe she never saw her father acting in a way that seemed “unkingly.” Maybe she thought that royalty should distinguish themselves from the common people. Perhaps Michal wanted David to act like the father she knew rather than the man he was.

She seems to have been embarrassed that her husband the king was dancing in such an undignified way. After all, shouldn’t David think about her reputation as well?

David did not miss a beat in his response. Perhaps with a sparkle in his eye and a sly voice, he said, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will cele­brate before the Lord.” He also declared that he would become even more undignified—and even humiliated—if that’s what it would take to celebrate and honor the Lord while serving as king.

In this way David put the Lord first when even a close family member criticized him. Sometimes people do not know how to handle the joy of the Lord. David showed that he believed it was right to celebrate with all your heart in the worship of God. As the early church leader Irenaeus put it, “The glory of God is a human fully alive.”

I grew up in the African American church. I saw people run up and down the aisles in worship services with shouts of joy and peals of thanksgiving. In my church, the service went for two hours straight with dancing, singing, and shouting. I miss those energetic moments of worship where people danced before the Lord.

David heard the news of how God had blessed Obed-Edom’s household because the ark of the Lord’s presence was there. David had been troubled with anxiety and fear, but now that turned to jubilation. So he brought the ark to Jerusalem. The parade from Obed-Edom’s house to the City of David was a sight to see. Stopping after six steps, they offered worship with sacrifices and shouts of praise and music and dancing.

David danced before the Lord wearing an ephod, a priestly gar­ment. Apparently this also meant he had taken off his royal robes so that they would not hold him back in his dancing before the Lord. In this way David showed that he could worship with a focus on God as his only audience. Not the Levites, or his military commanders, or even his family mem­bers were going to stop him from showing his deep love and devotion to the Lord, who had been with him since day one. David and all of God’s people had a worship celebration on the road.

Have you seen some of the Publishers Clearing House com­mercials on TV or the internet? A happy group of people jumps out of a van with flowers, balloons, smiles on their faces, and a huge fake check. They approach the home of an unsuspecting person with the news of winning large amounts of money for the rest of their lives. And the person responds with shock, surprise, and excitement.

Obed-Edom had no idea that the ark of the covenant would show up at his door. And the circumstances were sad and shocking. Uzzah had tried to make sure the ark would not fall from the cart when the oxen stumbled. But that vio­lated the holiness of the ark, and Uzzah paid with his life.

This puzzling event brought fear into the hearts of David and all the people. David halted the procession and took the ark to the house of Obed-Edom, where it stayed for three months. It must have taken Obed-Edom by surprise to have the ark of the presence of the Lord at his house.

As Obed-Edom and his family saw the blessings of God pour out on them like manna from heaven, his heart must have swelled with gratitude for the opportunity to be God’s servant. It was all by undeserved grace that he and his household were blessed.

“The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time” and established the conditions of conflict between God’s people. We read of the births of David’s sons as a sign of the growth and strength of his royal household. The silence about Saul’s household points to the fading influence of Israel’s first king.

But the house of Saul refused to go down without a fight. Abner, who had been Saul’s military commander, believed he could restore the house of Saul, so he made Ish-Bosheth king. Abner also tried to secure his own position by taking one of Saul’s concubines. But Ish-Bosheth didn’t want to share power with Abner, so Abner turned against him and supported David instead.

Abner’s answer could not be clearer: “May God deal with [me], be it ever so severely, if I do not do for David what the Lord promised him on oath and transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and establish David’s throne over Israel and Judah.” The rise of David was under way.

God can use strange turns of events like this to establish his plans for us. Sometimes he will even use our enemies to help.

Has that ever happened to you?