Two Views

II Samuel 11 - One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her.

I don’t like this story.  A man goes atop his roof and looks over at a woman with wrong intentions, and we read further to see that he acts wrongfully towards her, gets her pregnant, and even kills her husband!  This is one of the biggest sins I can imagine!  And yet later in the bible, it says David is a man “after God’s own heart!” What?

Let’s go back to the roof, first.  This is the same spot where spies were hidden and rescued, where covering takes place, and where great conversations are happening, and yet now it’s a place to look over and see something that should not have been seen.  And that one look led to multiple sins.

If we read later in the bible, David is fully aware of his sin, totally repents, and trusts God like no other.  And how can we judge?  Aren’t we also capable of taking the very place of refuge, covering, and intimacy with God and corrupting it with our thoughts or actions?

“From the roof” – a high place with a great vantage point – must be a place that we hold sacred and clean – or it can become a place with a view that will surely cause us to stumble and fall on the hard ground below.