The Act of Fasting

In the Old and the New Testaments, we saw where fasting was used as an aid to prayer. Moreover, fasting was not only seen as an aid to prayer, but also as an act of mourning, and to dissuade God from an act of judgment.

In the case of David and Bathsheba, we saw that when Nathan delivered the judgment of God to David and told him that the child who is born to you shall surely die David became very remorseful and fasted before God.. 2 Samuel 12: 14 ‘’However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the child also who is born to you shall surely die.’’ This shows that God's holiness required Him to rightly administer an immediate consequence to sin.

In the following verses, we saw the prophecy being fulfilled and that the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David became ill. At this point, David had to come face to face with what He had done. He had taken another man’s wife, slept with her, and impregnated her. From my perspective this was enough insult to injury, he really couldn’t have done anything worse, but he actually did. When Bathsheba made it known to David that she was pregnant for him, he tried to get Uriah to go to his house to sleep with his wife. This was an attempt to pin the pregnancy on Uriah and to cover up what he had done. When that didn’t go as planned David dug himself deeper into sin, by committing the ultimate crime- murder!

2 Samuel 11: 15-17. ‘’And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye, Uriah, in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die. And it came to pass, when Joab observed the city, that he assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men were. And the men of the city went out, and fought with Joab: and there fell some of the people of the servants of David, and Uriah the Hittite died also.’’

However, we saw that God’s judgment on his sinful act, made him come full circle with what he had done. His words to Nathan was, ‘’ I have sinned against the Lord,’’ He immediately recognized the consequences of his actions and repented. As I thought about the events that unfolded in this text, I recognized how important it is for us to be held accountable whenever we do something wrong. Like a child who disobeys their mom’s, dad’s, or caregiver’s instructions, and has to be reprimanded so it is with us. Whenever we fall out of line, whenever we commit sinful acts, God’s righteous response is to administer judgment/ consequences for sin. We also saw that it is easy for us to stand in the place of judgment of others until we recognize our fault. In 2 Samuel 12: 1-4, when Nathan presented the scenario about the man that only had one ewe lamb (the protagonist), and the rich man who took the poor man’s herd ( the antagonist), David immediately wanted to execute judgment on the man who did the wrong until he recognized that he was the man who errored. This must have been a shocking revelation for David to learn that God was indeed aware of his actions. Not only did God know of his actions but He disapproved of them.

Fasting To Appease God’s Wrath

As the chapter unfolds we see where David pleaded with God for the child and the bible said that David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground. If all night was a person-David was your guy! I know most of us can relate to this situation. Sometimes we face circumstances in our life that require an all-nighter. Furthermore, as much as we would like to think of ourselves as robust, and unmoveable, sometimes life throws us a curveball presumably to knock us over, But God! There are also times when we find ourselves like David; at times we may even be the prey to life circumstances or the predator that harms the flock, and like David, we cry out to God for a move. We begin to ask God for a bailout. Then God becomes our F.D.R of the 1930s. He comes in with a ‘’New Deal’’ a new plan to relieve,reform, and recover our broken lives. Today I pray that whatever state we find ourselves in, we will remember that God is able to do the impossible, He is able to bring dead things to life, and He is able to right the wrong in our lives.

Have a blessed day and a blessed week!