“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” ( Psalm 139:23-24).
If there is a daring character that had a lot of gumption few fit King David. Once he saw Goliath the Philistine giant who had thrown terror among the Israelites without missing a beat he had nothing but pour utter scorn. “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God” (1 Sam 17:26), he screamed at him. When his eldest brother Eliab tried to slow him down he just shrugged, “Can’t I even speak?” (vv 29). Then he went on to fight the giant with but a sling.
Sometime later when the ark of God was brought to the City, and quite over joyed he freely danced in his priestly garments. But his wife Micah, the daughter of King Saul, was not amused and decided to rebuke him. Then David without missing a beat retorted back, “I was dancing before the Lord who chose me above your father and all his family” ( 2 Sam 6:21).
King David was what they call an open book!
Indeed, when it was brought to his attention by Prophet Nathan that he had committed a great sin of having an innocent man Uriah the Hittite murdered so as to take his wife, there was no playing fool. Humbled, “Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam 22:13).
Contrite, later David would pour out his heart in a moving Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions. My sacrifice O God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, you O God will not despise …”
King David who at first might pass off as rather cocky was just one sincere person, never one to put up pretenses. It is one reason why his stature grew in the eyes of God. Perhaps we might pick a lesson that being a Christian means not a life of pretenses but living in sincerity with man and God!
Prayer for today: Lord God father of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, today I pray that in all my affairs I am ever sincere with you, just as King David was, this I pray in Jesus’s name.
