2 Samuel 11:6-13 – Don’t be up-ended by our propensities

David’s sin with Bathsheba affirms how prone we human beings are to capitulate to the propensities of our fallen nature. Here is a man so highly favored and blessed by God, yet in a moment of weakness could be so mindless to commit so vile an act. When David learned of Bathsheba’s pregnancy, he sent words to Joab to recall Uriah. It was bad enough for David to cheat on his man by sleeping with his wife, now he even attempted to cover his wrong using the victim of his sin. So David hatched a plot attempting to make it look as if the child Bathsheba had conceived was Uriah’s.  

David had Uriah recalled from the battlefront. He was hoping to send him home to his wife so that he could have an intimate moment with her. He even sent a gift to Uriah, probably to ease his own conscience and placate his wrong. What David failed to see was Uriah’s loyalty. He underestimated him. Though a Hittite, Uriah showed how responsible he was to his assignments. He could not bear the thought that his fellow soldiers were fighting at the battle-edge, while he would be relaxing at home. Instead of going home to a relaxing time granted by the king, Uriah chose to spend the night with the king’s servants at the entrance of the palace.  

Realizing that his initial plan had failed, David connived a second one. He retained Uriah for two more days and invited him to a meal with him. There he made him drunk, thinking surely this time he would return home to his wife. Again this second plot backfired. Instead of going home, Uriah chose to sleep on the couch with the servants of the king and did not go home. So David was back to his quandary again.  

The questions that besiege us are: how could a man so favored by God and yet so sinister at the same time? How could a man so wise yet so capricious? How could a man so godly yet so deceitful? These are hard and baffling questions. For sure David was a wise and godly man and there is much we can learn from his life. Nonetheless, we know that the answers to these questions can only be traced to the propensity of the fallen man. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that the human “…heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” This account here serves to remind us of how seriously we need to take heed of Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 10:12 that says, “…let him who thinks he stand to take heed that he does not fall.”

No matter how godly we think we are, or how wise we consider ourselves to be, or how confident we are in ourselves, we must not be upended by our propensity. Be mindful that life is a spiritual pilgrimage, a journey where we need to focus less on ourselves and more on God’s purpose and plan for us. Our journey is about cultivating an increasing sensitivity to the working of God in our lives. It is about developing an increased responsiveness to the leading of God. Being spiritual should never be treated just as an add-on in life. Being spiritual must be the very essence and focus of who we are in God. It is vital to our very existence!