Spend time in prayer and silence with God asking him to meet you and speak to you.
Bible Reading
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”
Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
– 2 Samuel 11:1-13
Devotion
Second Samuel 11 is the sad turning point of the whole book. The first ten chapters chronicle David’s ascendancy to the throne of the tribe of Judah, and later the kingship of the whole nation. The nation was prospering under David’s leadership and he was walking with the Lord. That all started coming apart in chapter 11. The text hints at a problem developing by pointing out that David stayed in Jerusalem when the expectation was that he should be out leading his army in battle. David seems to have taken off his armor and let down his guard both literally and figuratively. That one decision started a chain of events that soon escalated to adultery, deception, and eventually murder. As we will see in the next chapter, the consequences of this expanding cycle of sin followed David’s family for generations. In what should have been a great season in David’s life and his walk with the Lord, he was just one decision away from falling into the downward spiral of sin that caused untold misery in his life and his family.
The Big Question
What areas of complacency in your life have the potential to trip you up and send you into a downward spiral of sin? Are there temptations that you are especially vulnerable to? How can you be proactive in avoiding those temptations?
Conclude in prayer and silence reflecting on what you’ve learned.