Failures, Faults, and Faithfulness

In the Hebrew Scripture books of 1&2 Samuel, we read the King David story and how he became king and what happened to his kingdom rule. David is a deeply flawed individual. He is headstrong and often foolish or selfish in his behaviors. Yet, he truly loves God. He never stops believing in God, even as he relies on himself and gets into awful troubles. Those awful troubles usually result in others, besides David, paying a steep price.
Too many times we overlook or dismiss the failures and faults of the “heroes” of the Bible. We focus on the gallant things they have done and ignore the awful things. This truly skews the picture for us all. We can see these figures as powerful or even better than we are. We begin to match our faults to their successes and feel that we are lacking somehow in our own lives.
The Bible doesn’t skim over the faults of God’s children. Throughout the story of David, as example, we are continually made aware of his failures and his willfulness.  We also get a good picture of the consequences of those actions, and the pain caused to others. We see the many times that others pointed the gravity of David’s deeds to him in order to turn his arrogance to humility.
David loved God. He never lost that love. Yet, David also loved David, at times more than David loved God.  The Psalms attributed to him are filled with his remorseful pleadings and confessions to God. It was only in the aftermath of his arrogance that David fell down before God, offered repentance and sacrifice, and accepted his actions as his sin. Isn’t that true of most of us? David had many opportunities to choose his actions wisely. He didn’t. He lost beloved family and community respect because of his behavior.
Yet, still God loved him. God never gave up on him or turned away from him.  God used that faulted, failure of a man to do good as well, and commended David’s faithfulness. David rose from obscurity to power yet died without fanfare or glory. He did great things for Israel and for that he is remembered.
When we choose to read or teach only the “good stuff” of the heroes and their heroic deeds, we are in danger of believing that we are a disappointment to God. After all, we have failed to be heroes, we have faltered in our own arrogance and we have tried to credit God with the faults we commit when our focus shifts from God to our own selfish desires. When we read the whole story, the picture is much more faithful to the way that God sees us. Yes, we are also flawed. Yes, we also have faults. Yes, we often fail. God never gives up on us or turns away from us. God constantly calls us to turn around (metanoia – literally “change one’s mind”) and choose the better path, the one that leads to faithfulness. God loves us. God loves us as we are, and for what God knows we can become.
Every hero has a backstory. Every hero has times when that hero is a failure, surrenders to the hero’s own will and desires, instead of the way that leads to goodness and wholeness for themselves and for others.  When we only compare our lives to the heroic acts of others, we are at risk of becoming convinced that we are failures, unlovable, and unredeemable. The Bible stories show us that those “failure” times do not need to define us. We do not need to get stuck in our own faults. With the love of God, we are able to change our minds and accept the grace we are offered, in order to do goodness in Jesus’ name.