Except

“For David had done what was pleasing in the Lord's sight and had obeyed the Lord's command throughout his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite."  I Kings 15:5

I remember reading the roster for the sixth grade basketball team. I felt pretty confident going into the tryouts that I would get on the team. If memory serves me correctly, there was an "A" and a "B" team. Surely I was on one of the lists. Nope. It felt like everyone made a team except me. I learned very quickly the sharp stinging edge of the except.

The narrator/author of I Kings was compelled to publish David's except once again. Adultery. Conspiracy to commit murder. It was a very ugly story. David followed God ... most of the time. In Psalm 51, he came to terms with his except ... "Have mercy on me, O God." God did. 

You and I have some of those excepts too don't we? We can let them haunt us. We can pretend they never happened and hope they go away. We can rationalize and make excuses. Or ... we can join David in the throne room of God and ask for mercy. There we find as David tells us, "a broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise." 

Grace and Peace,

Tom Wiles
tom@fallcreekchrostian.org

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