Hope for Us all: Yes God’s chosen saint, David, was a murderer, adulterer and thief and had major family problems.

David was chosen  by  God  to  be Israel’s king when he was about 16.  He was a simple shepherd boy who  played  music  in the field to his sheep  while singing God’s praise.  To  give a synopsis of his career:  he  is anointed as king  and has to  wait yeeeeears before he actually becomes  king.  When  he does  he gets a little slack  (sounds like our politicians?) Instead of doing  his kingly duty of going to war, he decides to stay  home  while every one fights.  He spots  a fair  lady bathing  and his heart is gripped.  He asks his servant who  it is.  It is the wife of one of his chief  soldiers Uriah.  No problem-  he’ll get the gal  Bathsheba somehow.  He Gets Uriah drunk, sounds him into the front line  and gets him killed.  Boy gets the girl.  To  sweeten  things  she gets pregnant.  Well the Lord is not happy with  David to say the least.  He  gives David a personal  visit from  His prophet Nathan  who  lambastes him for abusing  his position  and taking a man’s wife and killing him.
David repents.  This is the occasion for the writing of the 50th  psalm  we read at Orthros.  “God have mercy on me a sinner.”  He loses reign  of most of the kingdom, loses the child through miscarriage, loses his best friend, loses  his joy of salvation,  loses his family.  His  son  then ends up rebelling against him and nearly killing him. 

God’s saints teach us a lesson.  And don’t we learn better from examples good or bad?  God  will restore His favor to  us when  he heed the prophet or man of God.  But the consequences of our actions can take time to mend.  We reap what we sow, sometimes the harvest is a little earlier than we thought, or later.  Let’s thank God for His abundant mercy.  There is no  extreme  God cannot forgive or heal,  just the refusal to be healed.