The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Seeing life as God sees

Beginning February 7 we will begin a study of the Life of David, the Old Testament king of Israel. We will follow his story as it is recorded in the books of I and II Samuel. David’s story is truly one of the good, the bad and the ugly. If we take this story at its true value it will have a considerable shocking effect on us. When God told David’s story he did not sanitize it, God told it as it was. Most of us tend to sanitize the stories of our own lives, for ourselves and for others, but God does not. Following David will help us to truly know God in our real life situations and with our real life selves. Think of it this way. When people see us in public they usually don’t get the real us, the good, the bad and the ugly. They usually see mostly the good, with a little bad and ugly mixed in. Just as we prepare our faces with make up or shaving, our appearances with hair styles clothing and cologne, we also prepare our souls with make up so people cannot see our real thoughts and feelings. David’s story clearly shows us that there is no make up for the face or for the soul before God. God knows everything and we can hide nothing from him. For poor David, God revealed many of David’s secrets, and recorded them in his Bible for the entire world to read. Why? Oh, the reasons are many. This is better than any reality TV, because this is REALITY. Just be glad God is not still recording, or is he? What if he told your story? Would you stay around for the reading of it at church on Sunday? I wouldn’t if it were mine! David’s story is a key to understanding all of history and to understanding your own history (as well as your present and future). David’s story was written to tell us how to get our story re-written.

If you would like to get ahead on David’s story, start reading at I Samuel chapter one. Reading a chapter a day will have you ready to get inside David’s life through our study and learn what it is to know that God is engaged in every detail of your life. Throughout the study we will be alternating perspectives to get the best view of life and clearest meaning of God’s word. This means that some days we will be looking at God through David’s eyes to learn how a man of great faith sees God. Other days we will look at David through God’s eyes to learn how God really sees us. Both of these perspectives hold stunning and even frightening views, but don’t close your eyes, you won’t want to miss anything.

Tony