A Man After God's own Heart

I really like the person of David, the way God describes him (as in the title here), his Psalms and his history.  It's a great read by any standard.  You don't even have to appeal to phrases like, "As ancient literature goes..." 

The thing I like most about these stories along with the Psalms is that David comes across as a very complicated character.  If you're looking for easily digested morality, better look somewhere else. 

Just to give away the plot, David is not perfect.  From where he passed his days on earth, he couldn't even see the gateway to perfect.

I heard someone on the radio say the other day, "...but David finished well."  I'm not sure why people who say things like that don't get slapped immediately or possibly even struck by lightning.  The universe's failure in this regard is an indication I think of the fallen nature of creation. 

Let me point out that on his death bed, David gave instructions to Solomon as to who Solomon should kill after David died.  As described in the text, this was one part consolidating the kingdom and one part settling scores.  There are absolutely no discernible components of love or grace or holiness in these instructions, just a lot of broken humanity, pragmatism and gore. I don't think current normative, societal morality would allow that ordering the assassination of your enemies on your death bed would be consistent with seeking to finish well, let alone with the idea of living a life as "a man after God's own heart." 

David's Psalms on the other hand, are all about a soul and heart living with and through God.  I heard Dallas Willard say something once the effect that, "To fully digest the Psalms is the beginning of understanding of the heart of God."  From having read the Psalms, I'd have to say that I find that statement to be exactly on point.  I'd also have to say that God's heart covers an awful lot of ground, more perhaps than we're used to.  Of course, when read unblinkingly, the Psalms cover even greater spans of moral geography that did David's life.  Did you know that in one Psalm David cries out to God to throw his enemies into hell alive so that they can experience a more complete dimension of excruciating pain and torment?  That one, along with a number of others, generally get glossed over in Sunday School.  Still though, David's emotional nakedness and unflinching, unedited confession of self before his creator is beautiful and astonishing to see.

I think the resolution to this conundrum lies in a few basic facts. 

1. God is who he says he is.
2. David was and is who God spoke him to be.
3. Creation is the broken version (with us doing the breaking) of what God spoke it to be.

Note that nowhere in that list is a place for my opinion, moral judgment, or self righteous indignation...or yours.  But, isn't it a great comfort that when read in the full spectrum of all that David was, did and wrote that God still considered him a man after his own heart? 

David followed hard after God.  He lost the trail quite often and sometimes profoundly so.  But his heart was always in the hunt.  Light years past his theology, his deeds or even his best intentions, his pursuit of his creator and his relationship with Him broken as it sometimes was, is the life, lesson and legacy of a man after God's own heart.