by Jacob Ninan
David was a man after God's own heart. As a shepherd boy looking after his father's sheep, he became a worshipper of God, writing songs (psalms), singing them and playing on the harp. After he was chosen by God to be the next king of Israel after Saul, he had to face many challenges and lived in fear for his life, but his responses were godly and humble. But things began to change after he became king. Even though God's laws prohibited him, he followed the practices of the heathen kings around him and took many wives for himself, including concubines (Deut.17:17). He was also so busy with his battles that apparently he did not have much time for his large family with many wives and their children. This led to problems in the family including jealousy, strife, favouritism, etc. When problems came up, he did not take necessary action but avoided confrontation. We see, for example, that he had never rebuked his son Adonijah at any time, and later how this son exalted himself to be king (1Kgs.1:5,6). When another son Amnon raped his step-sister Tamar, David was angry, but never did anything about it. It is possible that this caused Tamar's brother Absalom to rise against David later and to pronounce himself as king. David's sin with Bathsheba and her husband Uriah may have caused him to lose respect from his family and other people, and may have contributed to Adonijah and Absalom rising up against him wanting to become the next king. David had to flee for his life from Absalom. Later on, when Solomon his son became king, Solomon went on to marry hundreds of women as wives! God forgave him when he repented, but he had to face many consequences for the rest of his life.
When Adam and Eve sinned against God, even though God took the initiative to cover their shame, they lost their fellowship with God and everything they had in the Garden. Now their life became tough and full of physical and emotional trouble. When Jacob cheated his father and brother, he had to live with fear and uncertainty for many years after that. Moses had to pay for his disobedience to God when he had to speak to the rock to get water for the people, and after leading them for forty years, he had to face the consequence that he could not lead them into the Promised Land.
"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit" (Gal.6:7,8). Every action produces consequences, good or bad. Many people imagine that they can do what they like, and still avoid the negative consequences. Especially young people, who do not yet have the experience of failures or consequences, imagine that 'nothing will happen to them' even when they drink, drive too fast, etc. But the word of God warns us not to deceive ourselves about this; consequences will follow.
Many people imagine that once God forgives them, He will also take away the consequences. No. When God forgives us, He takes away the punishment that we deserve, but even then, the natural consequences of what we do will follow us. For example, a drunkard or a drug addict can receive forgiveness and become a child of God, but, except in rare cases where God heals them too, the damage that has been done to their bodies may not get reversed, and the psychological damage may need a lot of healing.
If we have been fooling around when we ought to have studied, no amount of prayer when the examination draws near can get us out of that, and then, many years later we may regret our inability to get a good job. If we have spent our money impetuously or extravagantly, we may now have to face huge debts which cripple our life. If we have gone from one relationship to another and then finally get married, we may find that we have trust issues in our marriage and a lack of closeness. If we have rushed into a marriage in spite of many warnings from experienced people, now we may be suffering not just regret but also discovering certain sides to the spouse that we had not known. If we have neglected to take the warning from God and married an unbeliever, now we may be in serious conflict on issues of beliefs and values. If we have given so much importance to our career and neglected the children in the process, now we may be facing rebellion or irreconcilable distance from them. If we have been involved in pornography we may find that we cannot relate well to the spouse or to the opposite gender. Careless words we have expressed in our marriage or friendship may have created a distance that we are unable to bridge.
What can we do if we are in any such situation? If we examine ourselves honestly and humbly, we may find more than one similar situation where we are now reaping the consequences of our wrong behaviour in the past. That is the reality of our fallen condition. But it is not easy, first of all, to recognise our own contribution to the state we are in now, because we are used to focussing on other people's faults and imagining that our problems are all all due to them! We may even think that it was God's fault for getting us into such situations! It takes a lot of honesty and effort to identify our faults in such situations, and sometimes it requires a third person such as a counsellor to help us to see them. But, as a starter, let us take it that we have all made mistakes and blunders and that our sins have affected others too. We may have been ignorant, or proud and unwilling to listen.
1. Owning up our sins
Ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to see ourselves as God sees us. Be willing to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves and accept what God shows us, without trying to justify ourselves or blame others. Even if others have had their part in it, let us just focus on identifying our negative contribution to the situation.2. Confessing our sins, asking for forgiveness
Every sin we have committed was an offence against God. He is our righteous Judge to whom we have to give an account of our life. So, as soon as we become aware of any sin on our part, it is important that we immediately confess that sin to God and receive forgiveness. But then we need to get things right with people too we have sinned against. It is our duty to apologise and set things right with them, even if they do not accept our apology or reconcile with us.3. Learning lessons
In dependence on the Holy Spirit, we need to learn why we made those mistakes, and the wrong assumptions we had in those contexts. This will help us to avoid the same mistakes in future, and also to become a little more humble. We can also become a little more merciful to the others when we see that we too contributed to the problem we had with them.4. Changing now
The lessons we have learned from our mistakes and understanding the others better should lead us to changing our own behaviour and also make us wiser in dealing with others. Our new approach must be different from assuming that it was all the other people's fault and trying to deal with them differently.5. Learning to live with the consequences
This is one of the toughest parts. We think that after we have humbled ourselves before God and even man, things should change in our situation. The man who was a drunkard earlier now wishes that his liver problem should go away. But even though God sometimes does miracles for some people, most people will have to reckon that they have to deal with the consequences.A cheating spouse may own up the unfaithfulness and apologise. But the other spouse may have difficulty in trusting that person for a long time. They will be observing that person minutely to see if there is any sign of cheating. That is difficult for the one who cheated, who thinks that after the apology there is nothing more to be done.
The right thing and the wisest thing is to accept our responsibility for the damage that we have caused. We must avoid the tendency to blame God or the others in order to avoid having to look at ourselves. Let us remember that God is always righteous and that everything He does in right and perfect. Let us humble ourselves and recognise that we are a part of fallen humanity and that like everyone else we too have our faults.
Just look at the situation philosophically. Imagine if God were to take away the consequences too when He forgave us. Then we would not have to suffer any consequence no matter what we did, and that will certainly reduce the motivation within us to stop sinning. Consciously or unconsciously, we will think that no matter what we do, there is always forgiveness available for us. Then why should we be careful to avoid sin, why should we judge ourselves, why should we learn any lessons? This wrong attitude is what God warns us about, saying that if there is no consequence to sin, our hearts will be given over to sin (Eccl.8:11). Then we can even become like the adulterous woman who commits adultery and then goes about just as if she has not done anything wrong (Prov.30:20). It becomes as if sin is really not a sin since there is no real consequence. This is why God has allowed consequences to remain even after He forgives us. He wants that to be a lesson for us as well as a warning for others.
Young people tend to think that nothing will happen to them. But there will be consequences, sooner or later. God warns us that our sin will 'find us out' (Num.32:23). This means not only that there will be a punishment from God one day for our sins, if we don't set it right before God, but also that some time when the consequences hit us we will realise that they are there because of our sins.
As Christians, when consequences hit us, we must not think that God is being hard on us. No. This is His love for us that is trying to teach us to avoid sin in the future. He uses these consequences to discipline us, because His ultimate goal for us is not just to forgive us but to make us like Jesus.
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.' And He who sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' And He *said, 'Write, for these words are faithful and true'" (Rev.21:3-5). God will one day make all things new for us. That is the hope we have. One day we can be on the new earth where there will be no suffering of any kind. Looking forward to that, in the meantime we need to endure the suffering we have here (Heb.10:36). Let us not miss learning from our mistakes and let us look forward to the time to come.