Edward’s QT, 2 Sam.12: 1-9, 9 June 2026.God sends Nathan to confront David with his sins of adultery and murder. Nathan tells David a story of a rich man with many flocks taking a poor man’s only lamb to cook for a guest. When David angrily responds to the pitiless injustice of the action, Nathan tells David that he has done exactly that by despising the Lord’s word and sleeping with Bathsheba.Questions: How have I shown little or no pity to others? What holds me back from right action when I do feel pity? (hardheartedness, lack of repentance)Like David, I never thought of myself as hardhearted or lacking in repentance. Reflecting on today’s highly charged passage, however, convicts me of that very sin. In my life I have been presented with moments of pity but behaved like a spectator. During the last weeks of my first wife’s life, I lived with a hard heart towards her. She had been hospitalized for her chronic alcoholism and sent home to die. She looked like a tent of skin over her bones, not the woman I’d known for 25 years. Her organs barely functioned and she was incontinent. I was in charge of her medication and the meals she wouldn’t eat.
Although she refused to keep the appointments with the doctor, I was told that I had to keep them because there had to be a record of them for legal purposes. Absolutely no alcohol was to pass her lips. Even one ounce would kill her. In the months leading up to this dire situation, my wife and I had argued violently.
Love had gone away. I began an affair with a woman who welcomed my arms and my company. Even though I went to worship twice a week, nothing of God’s mercy prodded me to care spiritually for my dying wife. I gave her no Bible and called no pastor for her. I went instead to my new lover, like the rich man in Nathan’s story eating someone else’s sheep.For many years after our marriage my present wife suffered from depression and an ongoing need for chiropractic help due to her spinal and pelvic maladjustment. A car accident added to those problems. Because I was struggling with employment and my impatience and frustration, I didn’t give my wife any pity or empathy.
Her ability to cope with all our shared troubles of finding accommodation, car repairs, going to worship, helping other people, and dealing with her mother, her troublesome brother, and her angry father led me to turn a blind eye to her need for loving care. I needed repentance of both past sins and my current ones in order to open my stubborn heart to pity. And I still need to go from pity to penitent application, but at least I know the route and can be held to account by others.Application: Confess to my wife that “I am the man” with a pitiless heart and then repent.Prayer: Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. Turn my eyes from selfish fulfillment to the care of those in need, especially my wife.
