I was not the best student growing up. Middle school math was a particular challenge for me. One time, I remember getting a bad grade on a test, but the teacher was offering a retake. My mom told me to talk with my dad that night to work through the mistakes I had made in preparation for the retake the following day.
I didn’t want to do that so just didn’t, and hoped they wouldn’t talk about it.
Unfortunately for me, they did.
I remember getting called out of bed and then lying repeatedly to get out of punishment. It didn’t work, and I ended up staying up late working with my dad on math. Neither of us were thrilled.
Several weeks ago, we talked about the story of David & Bathsheba. It’s a great story in terms of giving us lessons on how to avoid triggers and temptations, as well as the snowball effect of sin.
Today & tomorrow, I want to look at the following chapter to see the impact of David’s actions. He messed up. Now what?
There are two main things I would like to highlight from that chapter, focusing on one today and one tomorrow.
First, when confronted with his sin, David ran TOWARD God, not away from Him.
I CANNOT emphasize this enough. When you mess up, and you will mess up, you must develop the habit of running TOWARD God.
Verse 20 tells us that David went to church and worshiped.
Too often I see guys avoiding church when they mess up, thinking absence from the assembly of fellow believers is their penance for committing a sin?? Or perhaps thinking they’re not worthy of entering God’s house?? Or whatever.
That is a trick of the enemy. And it’s a super effective trick at keeping us isolated and in the filth of our sin cycle.
Once, I had a guy tell me that he didn’t think he should join our men’s Bible study because he messes up, stumbles, and sins too often. I explained to him that the group’s purpose was not to sit around and celebrate how great we’re all doing, patting ourselves on the backs. The purpose is to get together and talk about how we all mess up & stumble far too often and try to help one another get better.
Yes, work these 4 principles. Journal. Work on your sexual sin habit in community with other guys.
But know that you will mess up from time to time. If not in this area, in others.
And when you do that, don’t run AWAY from God.
Run TOWARD Him.
Thoughts to Pray/Journal:
- What are some practical ways you can practice running TOWARD, not AWAY from God when you sin?
- What happens when you run TOWARD God? What happened to David?
Reading: