In 2 Sam. 11, David did not go out to battle as the other kings did during the spring. He should have gone to battle. His heart is not in line with the anointing God placed on him. He shrugs his responsibility as King and does whatever he wanted to do. David allowed the trash of complacency, disobedience, and defiance to enter his heart. This caused a snowball effect that changed his relationship with God.
Later in the text, He has an encounter with Bathsheba, that has now developed into the garbage of pride, the diseased and smelly socks of privilege, the rotten eggs of selfishness, putrid aroma of arrogance, entitlement, and distrust lay waste in the ventricles of David’s heart. The filth doesn’t end there because David was willing to remain in this disgusting mess.
David pulls out a can of Febreeze and resorts to masking the stench of Bathsheba's pregnancy by arranging a 2nd honeymoon for Uriah and Bathsheba, after this assault he has placed on this family.
When David’s plan backfires, he then arranges the murder of Bathsheba's husband, Uriah. Now the odor of the hazardous waste that David produces through these acts are not only offensive but downright lethal. Now the heart-shaped trash can is beginning to smell overwhelmingly grotesque with the rancidity of sin. David is still willing to waddle in it.
So we find that David is pretty ripe, the odor seeping from his heart is offensive and he doesn’t even know it.
Nathan the prophet comes along and rips the lid off of this heart-shaped disaster, and reveals David’s calamity that will be known to all of Israel.
When David discovers that the smell of his sin reeks to high heaven, he also discovers that there is a great distance between him and God that Febreeze will not fix.
The love relationship David once had with God has been invaded by the dreadful onslaught of the funk and foul aroma of sin and God is not pleased.
No doubt David’s heart sung into brokenness.
His heart began to race into a mode of anxiety.
David probably began to remember the good old days of slingshots and bloodshed, the times that God helped him win victory after victory. He remembered how God protected him from Saul and all of his enemies.
I don’t think David wants to wing it alone. I don’t think he would survive without the Holy Spirit.
I’m sure David was now very afraid of God’s wrath.
David, being a man after God’s own heart knew the nature of God. He knew that he could be destroyed in an instant. This must have been torture for David to feel this type of separation from God because he knew God loved him, and now God was not pleased with him.
David felt dirty, to say the least, he experienced the shame of dirt and sought out to come clean and restore his relationship with God.
David’s trash caused a type of separation anxiety.
David began to grieve:
Psalm 51
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
5 Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.
6 You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.
1:17-My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
Are these the same feelings you experience when you are separated from the one you love?
When are you separated from God?
Are you grieving over this separation?
The results of trash in our hearts become hazardous because trash or sin separates us from God and it is grievous. Frequently, it is necessary to confess our sins before God by coming clean about our motives and actions.
God is merciful and kind and pardons our every weakness. We must be willing to give all of our sins to God. God will take out the trash and filth that we develop through our treatment of one another, our motives and misdeeds. God can and will take these heart-shaped trash cans and recycle them to contain the gifts of assorted chocolates that help build and equip the church for the work of God. But we must be willing to be used by God.
This Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day, it’s ok to give God your conversation hearts that reads “have mercy on me” and “forgive us this day”, and the hearts that are filled with the things that stop you from walking in the call and the anointing that God has placed on you as a witness of salvation.
Give all of those things to God, and God will return to you a heart cleansed with hyssop, and filled with a willing and a right spirit that is ready to serve God’s people.
Remove the trash of pride and ponder on God’s grace and goodness, and with all faith, believe that God is able to restore and keep you during this Lenten season as you strive to hear the voice of God and draw nearer to Him.
