I’ve been camping out in the Psalms.

David, the writer of many of the Psalms, is one of my favorite people.

He was massively flawed…

He essentially murdered the husband (Uriah) of a woman he wanted so he wouldn’t get in the way of that relationship. (See that story in 2 Samuel 11.)

His desire for that woman started when he was bored… he should have been out on the battlefront with Uriah and the rest of his troops.

He was a mess of a dad…

His son Amnon got murdered after raping his half sister (2 Samuel 13).

His son Absalom tried to take over the kingdom from David and ended up dying before his dad (2 Samuel 15).

And yet David had an amazing relationship with God.

He knew when to cry out to God for help:

“Hear my prayer, O Lord! Listen to my cries for help! Don’t ignore my tears” (Psalm 39:12a).

He also knew that his crazy actions needed forgiveness by God:

But I confess my sins; I am deeply sorry for what I have done (Psalm 38:18).

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May I be like David in my honesty before God. And may I not wait till after messing things up really badly!

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Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday.

The photo is used by permission under a Creative Commons license. Thanks to Ricardo Gomez Angel, the photographer. His work is on Unsplash.