Articles
What Lies Beneath
What Lies Beneath
“The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart…” (1 Samuel 13:14b). When we read 1 and 2 Samuel, sometimes it’s hard to see how David was a man after God’s own heart. He shines against Goliath and shows great restraint with Saul, but then he foolishly gets the priests of Nob killed (1 Sam. 22:22), he pretends to be insane in Gath (21:13), he almost flips out and takes vengeance on Nabal (25:33), he marries multiple wives (25:43), he sins with the ark, brings death on Uzzah, and gets angry at the Lord (2 Sam. 6:7-8), he commits adultery with Bathsheba and has her husband killed (2 Sam. 11), he fails to punish Amnon for raping Tamar (13), he keeps Absalom at arm’s length (14:28), he puts an unreasonable request on his men to protect Absalom after his rebellion (18:5), he mourns for Absalom instead of rejoicing in what his men did for him (19:2), and he took the sinful census (24). How could he be a man after God’s own heart?
Answer: he was the “sweet psalmist of Israel.” (2 Sam. 23:1). In Samuel’s narratives, we mostly see David’s actions on the surface. In the Psalms, we see what lies beneath the surface. We see his heart. It may seem from the narratives that David acts without thinking and sins without sorrow. Not so! We learn several key truths about David’s heart in the Psalms. 1) He desired to serve God and do what’s right. “I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not fasten its grip on me. A perverse heart shall depart from me; I will know no evil.” (Psalm 101:3-4) David’s heart wasn’t set on wickedness. He sinned, but never delighted in doing evil. The willing was present, but the doing wasn’t always (cf. Romans 7:18). 2) When he sinned, he repented and humbly accepted the consequences. When David sinned, it destroyed his conscience! “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.” (Psalm 32:3). He knew after his sin, there was nothing more important than to be made right with God. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (51:10). He didn’t try to defend himself; he accepted the consequences of sin and begged God for mercy. “I confess my iniquity; I am full of anxiety because of my sin.” (38:18). 3) God was always his solution. No matter what happened in David’s life, his heart returned to God like a compass needle returns north. “I love You, O LORD, my strength.” (18:1).
Consider two lessons: first, our actions don’t have to be perfect to be a people after God’s own heart. Second, what lies beneath our surface? Is it hardness, numbness, or a desire to do evil in our hearts? Or is it a reservoir of sweet psalms to God like David’s?
