Tune My Heart
There are depths of grief that I have never had to descend into personally. Many of those things I sincerely hope I never have to face. Some of you have and it truly hurts my heart. The loss of a child is a loss that is hard to even put into words. When we open up God’s word it is not just about rules and punishments but about daily struggles of real people and how they did or did not face them with the strength of God. 2 Samuel 12 records some of those times. The first part of the chapter is about the sins and consequences of a king (1-14). The later half of the chapter is about the grief of a father who turned to the Father in his time of need (15-23).
I’m careful about making judgement calls about things that are above my pay grade. God’s wisdom, justice, and grace are certainly things of which I don’t have a full grasp. The depths and the riches of his knowledge and wisdom is beyond my comprehension. Whether 2 Samuel 12:15 means that God was the one who actually afflicted the child or whether it was the authors way of pointing out that the child got sick through natural means (thus attributed to God—as in Hurricanes are “an act of God” but most of us would not say that God put his hand in the water and created it in that moment leading to destruction), I will allow you to reason out. If God did do it specifically I’m not in the habit of questioning His moral compass since mine is far less superior. God sees the big picture and had the entire scenario in his view.
Regardless, the child became sick and David “sought God on behalf of the child” (16). While many people blame God for the sickness, David seeks God as the solution. He refuses to eat and lays all night upon the ground. Remember, David is the king and he is the one laying prostrate on the ground before the Lord. I’m sure this scene had played out other times where it was David that people were bowing before, but today it was David’s turn. He had refused God’s leading when he was standing at the point of no return when calling Bathsheba to his bedchamber, but something has changed. David’s heart has been melted. Not just from a sick child, but by the recognition of his own disobedience.
And it didn’t simply last for one night. It was seven days. No food. Little, if any, movement. Prayer. That pretty much sums up David’s week. It is such a disturbing sight for his servants that they didn’t want to come reveal to him the news. But bad news doesn’t just come in words—it is usually written all over the faces of those who love us. When he sees the servants whispering he asks a closed and pointed question: “Is the child dead?” They have no way to avoid the question or deflect and so he hears their undeniably clear response: “He is dead.”
What happens next is what difficult for them and what is truthfully difficult for us to understand. David gets up from the ground, cleans up, puts on ointment to smell good, changed his clothes and went to worship. When he came back he didn’t go back into mourning. He sat down and ate. Don’t get me wrong here: Not everyone’s grief will look this way. But there is a clear connection that we simply must take note of. David mourned. David fasted. David prayed. David connected to God — the God that some might have, and often do, blame.
See, the difference is David tuned his heart to God’s heart. Whether he liked God’s answer to his prayers or not, he was ready to accept the answer because he was in constant communion with the Father. Not all our prayers will be answered with a “yes.” David prayed for a “yes” but he got a “no” that hurt. But his life was so tuned with the Father’s that he was ready to accept God’s answer and move to the next step in life.
I encourage families going through grief to express anger and sadness and happiness and any emotion that comes to the surface. Sometimes that is anger with God but even in that anger toward Him, God wants you to express it to Him. In doing so you will be able to tune the instrument of your heart to the magnificent melody of the Creator.
Ben