Daily Lesson for August 10, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from 2 Samuel chapter 14 verses 12 through 14:

12 Then the woman said, ‘Please let your servant speak a word to my lord the king.’ He said, ‘Speak.’ 13The woman said, ‘Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision the king convicts himself, inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again. 14We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. But God will not take away a life; he will devise plans so as not to keep an outcast banished for ever from his presence."

Grave things befell the house of David. A daughter was raped by a half brother Amnon. And having avenged his sister's defilement by killing Amnon, another brother Absalom was banished from the house upon penalty of death. The general Joab devised a scheme to get Absalom back, sending a "wise" woman to the king who told a story of two sons at war with one another, one killing the other, and the people demanding the death of both. David could see in another family's circumstances how one death could not justify another, blood for blood. The woman then told David it was his family she was speaking of. So then she says these words: "God will not take a life; he will devise plans so as not to keep an outcast banished forever from his presence."

David relented, and Absalom was allowed to come back to the royal house, but he was not welcomed into David's presence. There was strict silence between the two. Nothing was said from David, nor was anything expected from Absalom. For two full years it went on like this, until finally Absalom revolted against his father and attempted to usurp his throne.

It's such an ugly and twisted and trauma-filled story. And it is hard to tell what is justice within the story. It's so messed up, it's hard to know what or who is right or wrong.

But at the end of the day, what it surely tells us is that there is no future and no hope without forgiveness. There is no future without reconciliation.

The wise woman is right. In God there is reconciliation, and there is atonement. There is the invitation to come and be near in the presence of the Lord. And the Lord devises schemes to bring the banished home -- for good.

But the way forward requires that we not only agree to live in the same house, but also that we talk to another. It requires that we work out the future together. It demands that we determined what kind of atonement is necessary in order for us to live in peace.

Those who have ears, let them hear.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.