Messed Up Big Time

I want to remind you about a man of God who messed up completely in a big way. He committed sins that you wouldn’t think a good man would commit. This wasn’t one of those times were he accidentally committed the sins either. He committed them and then tried to cover them up with a great deal of effort. When all was said and done, two families were destroyed. The most amazing part of this whole story is that this didn’t ruin the man. He was able to recover from his mistakes and get back on his feet.
You probably already know which man of God I am talking about. He is none other than King David. He is the one in the bible referred to as the man after God’s own heart.
One evening, King David had a hard time going to sleep, so he went out on the balcony of his palace to take a walk. Off in the distance he saw a beautiful woman named Bethsheba taking a bath. When he found out that her husband, Uriah, was a soldier and was away at war, David sent for her and seduced her. Sometime later she told him that she was going to have a baby. In an attempt to cover his tracks, David had Uriah brought in from the battlefield for a time of "R&R". David suggested that Uriah go home and spend time with his wife. Uriah politely refused; going home to his wife during a time of war would have been an act of disloyalty to his fellow soldiers. Since Uriah couldn’t be persuaded to compromise, David sent him back to battle with a letter to deliver to the commanding officer. Uriah didn’t know it, but he was delivering his own death warrant. The letter told the CO to put Uriah on the front lines and withdraw the other troops so Uriah would be sure to die. This is exactly what happened. Uriah was killed in battle and David married Bethsheba.
No one in Israel knew the story behind the story, but the Bible says, in 2 Samuel 11:27 that…The Lord was very displeased with what David had done.
It wasn’t long before a prophet named Nathan confronted David with his sin. David knew that he had done wrong, and I’m sure that deep down he knew he couldn’t get away with it. To make matters worse, David and Bethsheba’s newborn child was very sick, and Nathan said it was all David’s fault. He said to David, "Because of what you have done, this baby is going to die." Imagine how David felt about that. He couldn’t hide it any longer. He had messed up big time and now he had to face what he had done.
David did face the music. He made things right with God and got his life back on track. At some point during this time, he wrote Psalm 51. This Psalm is all about "What To Do When You’ve Blown It." We can learn from David’s example how to make things right whenever we make a little or big mistake. When that happens, we often make the mistake of thinking that God hates us because of what we’ve done. The truth is, He loves us no matter what. When we sin, even when we sin big, He wants to forgive us and help us get back on our feet.