You've blown it!
“Have mercy on me, O God,according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin...” (NIV) Psalms 51
Today let's look at a story about a man of God who "blew it" in a big way. He committed sins that you simply wouldn’t expect a good man to commit. And it wasn’t one of those cases where he accidentally committed a sin before he realized what was going on. No, he put a great deal of thought and effort into committing his sin, and then he went to even greater trouble to cover his sin. In fact, the events in his life read more like a script from broadway than a Bible story. When the smoke cleared, two families were destroyed. However, the most amazing fact about this story is that this didn’t ruin the man. He was able to recover from his mistakes and get back on his feet.
You might have already guessed the man I’m talking about is King David. He’s the same one who wrote the most recognizable passage in the Bible, "The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want."
One evening, King David had a hard time going to sleep, so he went out on the balcony of his palace to take a walk. Off in the distance he saw a beautiful woman named Bethsheba taking a bath. When he found out that her husband, Uriah, was a soldier and was away at war, David sent for her and seduced her. Sometime later she told him that she was going to have a baby. In an attempt to cover his tracks, David had Uriah brought in from the battlefield for a time of "R&R". David suggested that Uriah go home and spend time with his wife. Uriah politely refused; going home to his wife during a time of war would have been an act of disloyalty to his fellow soldiers. Since Uriah couldn’t be persuaded to compromise, David sent him back to battle with a letter to deliver to the commanding officer. Uriah didn’t know it, but he was delivering his own death warrant. The letter told the CO to put Uriah on the front lines and withdraw the other troops so Uriah would be sure to die. This is exactly what happened. Uriah was killed in battle and David married Bethsheba.
No one in Israel knew the story behind the story, but the Bible says, in 2 Samuel 11:27 that…The Lord was very displeased with what David had done.
It wasn’t long before a prophet named Nathan confronted David with his sin. David knew that he had done wrong, and I’m sure that deep down he knew he couldn’t get away with it. To make matters worse, David and Bethsheba’s newborn child was very sick, and Nathan said it was all David’s fault. He said to David, "Because of what you have done, this baby is going to die." Imagine how David felt about that! He couldn’t hide it any longer. He had blown it in a big way, and now it was time to face the music.
David did face the music. He made things right with God and got his life back on track. At some point during this time, he wrote Psalm 51. This Psalm is all about "What To Do When You’ve Blown It." We can learn from David’s example how to make things right whenever we make a little or big mistake. When that happens, we often make the mistake of thinking that God hates us because of what we’ve done. The truth is, He loves us no matter what. When we sin, even when we sin big, He wants to forgive us and help us get back on our feet.