“Have mercy on me, O God, because of Your unfailing love. Because of Your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against You, and You alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in Your sight. You will be proved right in what You say, and Your judgment against me is just.” (Psalm 51:1-4 NLT)
While the term “denial” isn’t used in the KJV and other versions of the Bible, it is none-the-less a concept that is very familiar to the characters of the Bible. David lived in denial after having an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba (see 2 Samuel 11), a sin that set his life in a downward spiral that led to many other regrettable experiences in his life.
Denial is essentially refusing to see our wrong behavior in a redemptive light; it’s failing to allow the gravity of what we did gain its proper perspective, especially in our walk with the Lord. We choose to ignore the Spirit’s wooing as He seeks to draw us to the Lord for forgiveness and healing.
Beth Moore addresses this when she writes: “Denial’s the oldest trick in the book: to so rigorously, loudly preoccupy ourselves with the war around us that we ignore the war within us.” We do this not only as believers, but as unbelievers. The Lord’s convicting Spirit is drawing us to yield our life and allegiance to Jesus, but we keep pushing Him away. Followers of Jesus certainly don’t have a corner on the denial market.
So, how do we confront in our life what clearly doesn’t want to be confronted? Unfortunately, too often we won’t. We don’t know exactly the time that passed before the Lord told the Prophet Nathan to give David the message He’d given him, but it was minimally several months. What’s the application for us?
The only antidote to denial is facing the truth, but we aren’t very willing to do that without prompting. I’m confident the Holy Spirit convicted David the moment he learned of Bathsheba’s unwanted pregnancy; thus, the reason he tried so diligently to cover it up. But when human efforts failed, God moved in, and He will in our lives as well. It’s only a matter of how much carnage we want left in the path of our sin.
A couple of things that are helpful for us to understand. First, the Lord will forgive us, as He forgave David, but the negative consequences we have set in motion are going to take their toll, on us and others. Jesus pays the penalty for our sin, He will not always save us from their consequences. Confronting what we’ve done, being honest about our sin, is essential, but it’s not enough. Often the person or persons we’ve hurt will not forgive and/or forget what we’ve done.
They want us to hurt and suffer as they did because of our wrong behavior. Honestly, some will never forgive, but that doesn’t free us of our responsibility to forgive ourselves and trust the Lord to deliver us from ever doing something like that again. Sin is ugly and unrelenting, but we must make the choice to not allow it to dominate our lives from that point forward.
Each of us has done something or perhaps many things we deeply regret. God’s intention is for us to allow Him to turn that into an avenue of ministry to help others, to either avoid our sin, or to recover from its ill-effects if they’ve committed it. Either way, God will “work it for our good and His glory” if we’ll let Him.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 