The Meaning Of Life

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/2_samuel/14.htm

More life’s lessons.

In the last chapter of Second Samuel, Amnon raped his half-daughter Tamar, then Absalom killed his half-brother Amnon, then fled. And David was in great distress. He mourned his son Amnon, he mourned his daughters stolen innocence, and he love Absalom but at the same time he was angry with him.

Joab, leader of the kings army saw this distress, so he devised a plan to show David the way. And it became a story of forgiveness.

I’m not sure that the actions in the last chapter could even be made up for a daytime soap opera. Lust, rape, anger, murder…today’s soaps are even tamer than that. But that is what happened.

So Joab recruits a woman to visit King David and make up a story about her own family. Of course David wasn’t looking in a mirror, and told the woman she should forgive. And just like when Nathan told David that someone in his house had sinned, and David demanded to know who it was, and Nathan said, “It was you!”, the same reaction happened with the “woman of Tekoa”, as the chapter is named.

And David realized the error of his ways, he forgave Absalom, then sent to have Absalom return.

It would be hard to be forgiving to someone who has wronged you, let alone someone who has caused such events as Amnon and Absalom did. They didn’t just have an argument, one committed rape and the other committed murder.

But the Lord says to “forgive your enemies just the same as your Father has forgiven you”. No matter how badly we sinned, if we turn back to God, confess our sins, ask for forgiveness, then repent of our sins, God is just waiting to forgive you. God loves to forgive. We are His children, He loves us, and He wants us to be a big happy family with him. Just as when your own child does something bad or breaks the rules, you hope that they apologize, learn their lesson, and change their behaviors so you can forgive them. You want to forgive them, just as God wants to forgive us.

In David’s case, he had a lot of forgiveness to dole out. His beautiful virgin daughter was now defiled, by incest none-the-less. His son who committed the atrocious act was now dead which had to be extremely painful for David. Then his son Absalom was the one who killed Amnon, then fled from the family. That is a lot to “forgive and forget”. But David did, after the lesson of the woman of Tekoa.

But here’s the thing. David committed adultery and impregnated another man’s wife. Then he covered his crime by killing the husband. The only thing different was David’s actions were not an incestuous relationship. And guess what? God forgave him. But David, in handling the events of his own house forgot about that. He was holding a grudge against members of his own family and their sins, while God immediately forgave David for his.

It is so important to remember, if you want God to forgive you of your sins, you have to be prepared to forgive others for theirs.

And God is our creator, our Heavenly Father! All He expects is us to follow His rules (and I hate calling it that because they aren’t “mandates”, every “rule” God has issued is for our own good) so we can be safe, healthy, and good citizens among others.

If there were less grudges in the world, there would be less strife. But then again, that isn’t the world Satan wants to see. So once again, we are pulled in two different ways; give in to our feelings of hurt and anger and resentment, the characteristics Satan wants us to display, or forgive others as God forgives us, and be more like our Savior Jesus Christ.

God bless everyone and have a blessed new year!

P.S. Forgive the misspelled words…I do good to type something eve coherent, let alone check for spelling and grammar.