Living with past decisions

Living with past decisions
Robert Wurtz II


Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. (2 Samuel 12:10)

I was speaking with my son who is studying criminal justice about why criminals are criminals. One of the reasons is that they rarely think critically about anything. Their thought patterns are selfish and near sighted. They don’t think rationally about the consequences of their actions. They employ their own skewed perspective and never stop to examine other perspectives. This was generally not the way David behaved, but in the matter of Uriah the Hitite and his wife, he was thinking very short sided and selfishly. It almost always has consequences. As wonderful as forgiveness is, it cannot erase some of the consequences of sin. If there is a message that needs to be shouted from the housetops, this is it. We cannot afford to leave folks with the impression that they can sin their life away and then return to God and He will correct all the damage. That is not reality and it is not Biblical. David suffered terribly for his sin even long after God forgave him.  

Stop while you still can

There is a recklessness in our times in which folks do things that have permanent consequences without giving it any real and lasting thought. Like a bull in a china shop, they are blasting through their life as if they had no restraint. There is a ruin that sin can bring that is impossible to undo, and all we can hope for is the daily grace to endure the vexation and chaos that we have done to our lives. Like the bull pictured above, they will grow old and grey trying to glue back-together their lives. When we “do it our way” we are like a raging, confident instrument of destruction. The bull needed to be corralled and stopped when it was young, but it would not listen to reason. The foolish, short-sided decision making, brought so much destruction in such a short period of time that it is impossible to measure. Paul said to flee youthful lusts that war against the soul. 

Why not listen?

David knew what he was doing was wrong. Often folks don’t even admit of wrong. They blame everyone else for what they are doing. But like the bull in the china shop we are operating in our own lives. The decision we made yesterday and yester-year have brought us where we are now; the decisions we make now will determine our future. Why not stop, right now, and think hard about the direction our life is going and the consequences it will have for the future. If we choose wisely we put ourselves in the best position for a quiet and peaceable life; but the more drama we sow early on the greater the harvest will be. Ten years is not a long time. We can blink our eyes and it be passed. Ask yourself, where is my life headed? How is this going to end up? Don’t think about the fun you think your having now, think about the pain and suffering you will soon experience if you choose foolishly. 

David lives with his sin

David at first went headlong into sin and then tried to cover it up. But he came to his senses and admitted (acknowledged) what he had done. He didn’t pass the blame, he took 100% responsibility. He had to live with what he had done. He had to live with the consequences. The child by Bathsheeba died and his household went into moral chaos. It was tough, but he was able to get on with his life. He endured a lot of heartaches as a result of his sin, but God gave him the grace to survive it. Was it hard? Absolutely. But not nearly as hard as it would have been had he kept on in sin. The way of the transgressor is hard. His problem with lust was dealt with by the time it was all over. Life taught him the wisdom of God’s commandments and precepts. On his death bed he could heartily ‘amen’ the Ten Commandments. He was sick of lust and passionate desires. In fact, they brought a young virgin to his bedside when he was dying hoping to get his body temperature up, but he would not acknowledge her. (1 Kings 1:1-4) What a picture of being sick and tired of the games! That’s what the years of suffering the consequences of his sin had done to him. He had been there and done that and didn’t want any more part of it. Would to God we can learn from his experience and realize that the pleasures of sin are but a short season and then the reaping begins.