Tuesday, July 22, 2008

David's Election

I finally finished "Certain Women" by Madeleine L'Engle. Not an impressive book, but I was certain that there was stuff in it for me, and kept on.

Here are a few nuggets, on King David.

"...it's one of the great things about David, that he never tried to rationalize or justify what he'd done. ... He cried out in an agony of repentance, 'I have sinned against the Lord.' ... I think David suddenly saw himself as an ordinary human being who sinned, like other human beings, and that's when he truly began to love God, and to understand that he was God's anointed, not because he was sinless, but because God had chosen him and he didn't have to understand why."

"...it was only after David lusted after Bathsheba, caused Uriah's death, only after he had failed utterly with Tamar and Amnon and Absalom, only after he was fleeing his enemies, fleeing his holy city of Jerusalem, that he truly became a king. ... Maybe we have to sin, to know ourselves human, faulty, and flawed, before there is any possibility of greatness. ... David did become great only after he'd lost everything. "

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