Monday Meditation: David Mourned for the Living

2Samuel 12:22-23
He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”

2Samuel 13:39
And the spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom, because he was comforted about Amnon, since he was dead.

David Mourned for the Living

You could call me fortunate because I haven’t had close people die yet. I know it’s coming. 

David was familiar with death, it was all around him. As a warrior he had caused it. Living in a time when life expectancy was so young he had seen his fair share.

It struck me as interesting that he mourned while the child was still alive, and after, when the child was gone, he was done. That takes faith. I get the sense that David’s long experience with God made it more practical for him to move on. Because to mourn the dead child was to tell God he didn’t trust him. It would have been saying, “your judgment, Lord, was wrong” and that was something he could not do because he knew God and knew the judgment was right.

And latter it happens again. David chooses to mourn for his insurrectionist son, not the other who was murdered, because that son was still living and perhaps something good could still come from him.

I don’t think that David was uncaring it just didn’t serve him to hold on to the dead.