The life of King David

I am a fan of the Bible. I love reading about how God moved in people's lives and they were drawn to Him through his love. I have been perplexed by David's life for quite some time now. He was undoubtedly called "A Man after God's Own Heart". And he made his errors. I am aware of those things and I don't want to go in the direction with this blog in the direction we often hear.... "David's life shows us that God can use broken people and that He loves us in spite of our weaknesses." Friends, I know that. And I don't think that David's biggest downfall was the situation with Bathsheba and Uriah. He did it wrong but there is something more that we also see in our families now. Bear with me as I share two things that I have learned.

David was not always a good father to his kids. You can read in depth in 2 Samuel 13 and 14. This story literally gives me the shakes. Amnon and Tamar were both David's children. Amnon loved his sister (incest) and wanted to be with her and was convinced that it would work out by a friend and he used trickery to bring Tamar to her and he raped her. Absalom, another brother, knew about it. He brought Tamar into his house afterwards and he never forgave Amnon.

In verse 2 Sam 13:21-22 says, "When King David heard all this, he was furious. And Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar." 


King David did nothing. He sat in his fury. He knew that not only had his daughter been raped but by her own brother and the other brother hated him for it. Being a father, he never stepped in to defend his violated daughter then he didn't help his sons work out the problem. He could have helped. Absalom went on to kill Amnon and went on to have a huge conspiracy against his dad. 


At the end of his life, David had to hire outside care for him. In 1 Kings 1:1-4, it shows that he was alone. After having multiple wives and concubines, this passage shares with us that there was no one available to care for him. Now we can think that all of them died. But do you think it is ironic that there was not one loving family member to warm him at his old age. Not one wife, not one concubine, not one sibling, not one child. That is so sad to me. 


This shows me that I want to be someone that not only loves the Lord but is a great wife to one man. And someday I want to be a great mother that is a hero to her kids. I want them to know that we are a family and that we stick together and with Jesus Christ, we will choose to resolve conflict and love each other well so that the outside world will know Jesus because of our family.