daily java

Daily Java:

David replied, “I fasted and wept while the child was alive, for I said, ‘Perhaps the Lord will be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But why should I fast when he is dead? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him one day, but he cannot return to me. (2 Samuel 12:22-23)

King David had an affair with a neighbor and had her husband killed so he could marry her after she became pregnant. The Lord was angry with David. They had a son, who became ill. As David waited for the son to live or die, he fasted, lay on the ground – all of the things that an ancient Hebrew would do to show penance for his sin.

The son died. When David found out, he got up and cleaned himself up, worshiped the Lord in the temple and sat down to eat. His people asked him, why are you not sad anymore? His response was the scripture above.

In essence, he said: it’s all over and there is nothing I can do. So life goes on.

And it does. I am the world’s worst to think about things in the past and wish I could do them again. But it does no good.

Now that is easy to say but intensely hard to put in practice. There is no way to change the past, but we sit and dwell on it.

Omar Khayyam in his book the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam wrote something that is so true.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
  Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
What happened to you thirty seconds ago is as irretrievable as something that happened in Napoleon’s time. Both are in the past. Both are totally unreachable and unchangeable. And to weep over them is futile.

However, it also human to weep over past failures.

All we can do is to say that what we did, if it was wrong, we will not do again. It is called repentance. And we may suffer consequences, as David did. He kept his wife, Bathsheba. But he lost so much more. If nothing else, he lost the knowledge that he was a good man.

You cannot get that back. You can still be a good man, you can still do god things, you can never do that again. But you know how you are now and you know what you are capable of in the midst of your own lust.

David gained a knowledge of his ability to be bad, a glimpse into his inner heart.

And there was nothing he could do about it. It was in the past.

All he could do was go from there and do the best he could.