Looking into the life of David as we go through the books of Samuel, Chronicles, and the Kings, allows us to see both the “Good Guy” David and the “Bad Guy” David. It’s hard to think that this is the “man after my own heart” that God chose to lead His people when we see his life laid out in detail.
We love the stories about success and triumph, obedience and loyalty, like his conquest of the giant Goliath or his friendship with Jonathan. We love to hear about his thirty mighty men who were his personal bodyguards and kept him alive on the battlefield, and how he rescued Abigail from a life that was beneath her abilities and brought her into his palace so she could become all she was meant to be. We like to read the Psalms he wrote when he is recounting the lovingkindness and unfailing love of the Lord and his passion to worship. We like to hear about his benevolence to the less fortunate in his kingdom. This is the “Good Guy” David; the one that makes sense to us that this is the kind of man God would choose.
David’s life is filled with the everyday things of real life. He’s the youngest of eight boys; he’s a talented musician; he’s brave and responsible; he’s got a great work ethic; he’s a friend, a husband, a father, an employer, a soldier, a lover, a thinker and a writer and yet, impulsive. He’s generous yet selfish. He’s a builder and a money maker and provider; he’s a leader and a mover and shaker. He has surrounded himself with good and capable people but still needs to be alone.
His adulthood seems to have started here. In all his passion as a lover, he seems to have blown off his first marriage to Michal, Saul’s daughter. The bible says that she loved him very much. They were newlyweds when they were separated by trouble in the kingdom. She helps him escape with his life and covers for him so he can get to safety. He never returns for her. She starts over with a new life, a new husband, and a new town. When David realizes after eight years that it cost him plenty to have her as his wife he wants her back. He rips her from her new life and family and places her back into his home. But this woman has gone from loving him to despising him. Who could blame her? She has gone from number one in his life and risking it all for him to being number three in a growing list of wives. Then, even though he is the man of the hour, good guy David setting up worship for the kingdom of Israel, good guy David blessing all the families of the land and feeling pretty good about himself, Michal lets her contempt for him and his duties show. His reply? “Don’t forget that God chose me over your dad and brothers!”
It happens to us all the time. We misuse our time, our money, our judgment. We say selfish things, we do selfish things. It’s not that we don’t mean well or want to do the right thing. But, sincerity and good intentions without self-reflection cannot be used as an excuse for selfishness. It will get us into trouble most every time! Just like David.
When I read about David and see the bad along with the good, I think about his predecessor Saul; God rejected him as king of Israel because he sinned and was selfish too. What’s the difference I ask myself? Saul continued in his selfishness and it became his demise. David continually came back to the Lord repenting of his sin and disobedience and God seems to have had room in his heart for that!
David writes in Psalm 51, after one of his episodes of sin and disobedience, “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart.”
The apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 5:20-21, “As people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful kindness became more abundant… giving us right standing with God resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ.”
God’s grace exists because even good guys, and gals, get it wrong sometimes!
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