I used to wonder what made David so special that he was called “a man after God’s own heart”. He gets much more road frontage in the Bible than someone like Josiah. I mean, have you ever read Josiah’s story? He became king when he was 8 years old, and proceeded to eradicate the land of Judah of all its idols. I don’t just mean he sat up in his palace (like David once did) doling out orders for others to do his bidding, but he marched through the land himself tearing down all the high places, etc. In fact, if I was to pick a king who seemed to have the best track record of righteousness, it’d be Josiah (look him up. He was incredible).
But David is the golden child! The one whose story we are so much more familiar with. Everyone’s favorite king. It helps that he was also a pretty epic songwriter, and the lowliest of Jesse’s kids. His dad didn’t even bother to bring him when Samuel asked to meet all his sons, which seems to imply that David was thought of more as a servant than a son. Everybody loves a good underdog story!
Still, I think there’s something more to this “man after God’s own heart” concept. I have been reading Hosea (an excellent book, if you’ve never read it, or even to revisit. if you have). Hosea was a prophet writing in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (kings of Judah who came many generations after David). You absolutely must read the Book if you want the full context, but the short story is that God called Hosea to exemplify His own love for His adulterous people who kept forsaking the Lord and pursuing idols by having him marry a prostitute. WHAT??? IN THE BIBLE??? Heck yeah! If you’ve never read the Bible, it’s quite the soap opera!
In Hosea 3:5, He says “Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to to the Lord and to His goodness in the latter days.” (ESV). This struck me because “David their king” is no longer their king. Hosea is writing in the days of David’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great + grandsons!
In 1 Samuel 13:14, we first see David first being given this sacred title… and we haven’t even met the kid yet. He’s still out in the wilderness singing and tending sheep! The context is that Saul (the first king) just sinned by disobeying God, and God turned His face from him and told Saul He’d be getting another king to take his place… one who was “a man after His own heart”.
But later, when we read David’s story, we see David also sinning pretty monumentally. He stays home and takes a nap while he ought to have been out to battle. He lusts after Bathsheba, sends his servants to get her, sleeps with her, then kills her husband when he finds out she’s pregnant. It was a Domino effect of sin and almost all of it (if not all) was premeditated. So, how come Saul gets his authority stripped, and David is still being referred to as “a man after God’s own heart” in the New Testament (Acts 13:22)?
Herein lies what I believe to be a deeper truth about what it means to have a heart after God’s. If you look back at Hosea, we see David referenced in the context of His people’s repentance. And if you look at Samuel’s writings, we see a stark contrast between how Saul responds to Samuel’s rebuke and how David responds to Nathan’s rebuke. Saul tried to make excuses for himself, weasel out of the consequences, lost his mind and tried to kill David repeatedly (knowing that David was to be the next king). David cried out in sorrow for his sin, accepted the consequences, and begged for mercy! One of the greatest Psalms of all time was written in the wake of David’s repentance (Psalm 51).
I’m fairly confident that it is in repentance that we see most clearly David’s heart that seeks after God’s. His greatest desire was to please and obey God, but when He failed, he owned up to it and pleaded for mercy while accepting the consequences. I believe this is why, as God is speaking in Hosea 3 of the children of Israel turning to God from their idols, he refers to “David their king”. Not because David was still actively king. He’d been buried for quite some time by the time Hosea was writing this. But David was their greatest leader in the area of repentance.
As is he ours. I cannot imagine how many times the saints of God (including myself) have found the humility and courage to bring our brokenness and sinfulness to the Lord through the words and story of a man who once slept with a married woman and had her husband killed. In David’s story, we learn not only about his heart, but about the heart of God, who loved us “While we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8). God doesn’t only love perfect people. Otherwise, He’d have no one but Himself to love!
Instead, He is the God who, in Hebrews 4:16, tells us to come boldly to the Throne of Grace so that we can receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. IN TIME OF NEED! This isn’t when we’ve got it all right. This is when we feel like we just stepped out of a boxing match with our own sinful flesh, wobbly, busted up and bleeding from multiple head wounds.
This is also only an invitation for the people of God. If you try to enter His throne room without being made pure through the sacrifice of His spilled blood, you are entering a King’s palace and may be struck dead. But if you enter through the sacrifice of Jesus, He invites you to come boldly to receive all the mercy and grace you need to make you whole in your time of need.
It once terrified me that God knew everything about me, and could see into all the darkest corners of my heart, mind and soul. Yet, for decades now, I have found such comfort in that reality. I cannot hide from Him so there is no reason to try. What I find, when I enter the Throne Room like David pleading “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love, according to Your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51:1) is that God’s sacrifice was more than enough to make me impeccably pure and accepted by Him. I am free! I am like a prisoner who the Judge has simply and fully pardoned, knowing full well that I am a thief, a murderer, and a scoundrel. There is no logical reason He should have pardoned me. And when I am honest with Him and myself about the wretchedness of my sin and the freedom of His forgiveness, it makes me cherish Him more fully, long to follow Him more devotedly, and it grows me in humility to remember that I am a fallen woman but my God is a mighty Victor who conquered sin and death on my behalf, and I am welcomed to rest and reside in the shadow of His wings!!!
It is not because I’ve gotten it right that I love God. It’s because I’ve gotten so many things so very, very wrong, and I found the riches of His forgiveness and grace in the midst of it! The deeper I understand the forgiveness I’ve received, the greater my love and appreciation for Him grows. Perhaps this was David’s secret. Instead of turning from God in shame when his sin was discovered, it brought him to greater depths of humility and praise! This is the mystery and majesty of the forgiveness of a God Who traded His life for a cross! And this is the marvel to folks like me who resides in the shadow of the cross and the bliss of the resurrection!
Space 7/8/25
