Motivation Monday - A Season of Brave Bathsheba's Brave Recovery #1
Monday Motivation September 25, 2023
A Season of Brave - Bathsheba’s Brave Recovery #1
Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin starred in the 2009 movie, It’s Complicated. Streep’s character had been divorced to Baldwin’s character for years. When she became interested in Martin’s character, her ex-husband showed up and lured her back into a relationship. How would you describe that situation? It’s complicated!
Looking at the story of David and Bathsheba, I’d bet no two people would agree on who was responsible for how she ended up in his palace, in his bed—a married woman whose husband was one of David’s key warriors.
We often find ourselves in situations, such as a relationship breakdown, in which we want to blame someone or lay the responsibility at someone’s feet, based on the credibility of one person or the other. It becomes a matter of he said/she said. We don’t like it when things aren’t settled and there’s no one to blame. We like to clarify who was right and who was wrong.
But in the story of David and Bathsheba found in 2 Samuel 11, it’s complicated.
Maybe things are “complicated” and confusing for you too. And this can stop you from being brave, as you wonder if you’re a victim or victor. You either carry shame for something that wasn’t your fault or deflect responsibility for something you need to own up to. It’s a complicated world, with the #metoo movement, economic uncertainty, bizarre weather patterns and confusion about just about everything.
As women leading in your homes, churches, ministries and the marketplace, do you find yourself looking for someone to blame? How have you been impacted by someone else’s choices that you never agreed to, and yet have found your whole world turned upside down?
Bathsheba is probably one of the most controversial and misunderstood women who ever lived. She has been labeled both a victim and a vixen. But her story is important because, just like women before her, she was chosen to be a significant player in the lineage of Jesus.
So who was this woman? She’s mostly known for bathing on the roof, catching King David’s attention, and committing adultery with him. She’s a figure associated with shame, and known as one who caused the king’s downfall and her husband’s murder. At best, she’s a victim of circumstances, a consenting weak woman who had not resisted an obvious sin; at worst, she’s a shameless, adulterous woman who schemed her way into the high places of the royal palace.
Yet God had chosen this controversial woman to bring forth the lineage of Christ. Both the earthly father and mother of Jesus—Joseph and Mary—were her direct descendants. The Scriptures say that Bathsheba bore four sons to King David: Solomon, Nathan, Shimea, and Shobab and among them, two were direct forefathers of Jesus. Joseph, Mary’s husband, came from the lineage of Solomon (Matthew 1:6) and Mary, Joseph’s wife, was a direct descendent of Nathan (Luke 3:31).
She carried within her veins the blood of spiritual royalty. God makes no mistakes in honouring whom He chooses, even the least likely.
Bathsheba’s firstborn son, Solomon, was chosen to be the first successor to King David. Why would God choose to honour this woman throughout the history of His holy nation Israel, where so much emphasis is placed on genealogical uprightness?
He chooses whom He will choose.
And you need to know that there’s a place for you in God’s story.
Even if things seem complicated right now.
There were many other sons borne to David’s other wives, sons who were not tainted with such a bad reputation and as misunderstood. Yet God picked this “woman of shame” to bring forth the successor.
You might be waiting for just the right time in your life to say yes to God. When you have a great job, when the kids are married, off, when you buy your first place, when you lose the weight, when you find the right partner, when you have resolved all of your relationship issues, when your finances are in place…because right now your life is so complicated you don’t think God would be calling you out of such a hot mess.
Bathsheba’s life was very complicated, as we will continue to see in the weeks ahead. And yet as we will see, she found a pathway forward by remembering her God and walking with integrity in a situation she never would have imagined.
In the midst of your complicated life, all God is looking for is a simple yes.
Only He can help untangle the knotted up threads.
The Knot Prayer (author unknown)
Dear God
Please untie the knots that are in my mind, my heart, and my life.
Remove the have nots, can nots, and the do nots.
Erase the will nots, the may nots, and might nots
that may find a home in my heart.
Release me from the could nots, would nots,
and should nots that obstruct my life.
And most of all, Dear God, I ask, You remove from my mind, my heart,
And my life, all of the am nots that I have allowed to hold me back.
Especially the thought that I am not good enough.
Amen
I believe in you!
God bless.