Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Ps. 51:8
David’s prayer after the Lord disciplined him for his adultery and murder. God let David’s infant son die in order to draw his heart back to the Lord.
David begged the Lord to let his son live. He wept and mourned when it happened. How much must that have hurt to lose something/someone you love so much. Even more to know that your sin causes it; your choices wreaked havoc on the lives of those you love so much.
Through it all David ran to the Lord for forgiveness, mercy, cleansing, healing, and eventually restored joy. He acknowledged that it was his choices, his sin, his heart that are the problem. He also acknowledged that it was God who brought the discipline, who broke his bones. And it was to this same loving, just, merciful God whom he ran to for joy.
God is after our hearts. He is jealous and relentless in this because He loves us. He knows what’s best for us is that our hearts find ultimate joy and pleasure in Him. He never intended for anything in His creation to fulfill us completely. When we seek ultimate joy in anything or anyone but Him… eventually pain and destruction follow; not just for us, but for those around us that we love so much. It would be unloving for Him to let us continue on that path of destruction. He loves His children. He will make our paths straight. But because our paths are curved in on ourselves because of sin, sometimes straightening them out is painful. But it’s a necessary pain for those of us who love the Lord and truly desire Him and His joy. The longer we follow our own paths, the more pain and destruction He has to pull us out of.
Thank God He doesn’t leave us the way He finds us. He will finish the good work He began in us. The question for us is how much of our own pain and destruction are we willing to suffer through before we stop playing with mud pies in the slums and instead run to Christ for an eternal holiday at the beach?