The people knew David had asked that Absalom not be hurt if
it could be avoided. Knowing he had been
deliberately killed, even those who had not been involved had a sense of guilt
for not stopping it, in II Samuel 19:3.
“And the people gat them by
stealth that day into the city, as people being ashamed steal away when they
flee in battle.” At the same time,
David was undoubtedly feeling guilty for not having immediately forgiven
Absalom years before, wondering if things would have turned out differently if
he had behaved differently as we see in II Samuel 19:4. “But
the king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom,
O Absalom, my son, my son!”
The son of a family I know just killed his aunt, and his
parents are devastated wondering what they could have or should have done
differently. It is impossible to know
whether different actions would have made any difference. Such a sense of guilt can take over a person’s
life and destroy them even though they had no way of knowing what going on, and
nothing they did may have made any difference.
Joab realized that giving in to his ense of guilt was destroying not
only David, but the entire nation. He
was allowing his sense of guilt and loss to isolate him from the very people
who had done everything possible to help him, making them feel he blamed
them.
It was essential that David accept the fact that Absalom was
dead and nothing they could do would change that. David would have to put the hurt and guilt on
the back burner and get on with his life or he would destroy the entire
nation. The people were getting the
impression that he cared only about Absalom, as Joab told him in II Samuel
19:5-6. “And Joab came into the house to the king, and said, Thou hast shamed
this day the faces of all thy servants, which this day have saved thy life, and
the lives of thy sons and of thy daughters, and the lives of thy wives, and the
lives of thy concubines; In that thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest thy
friends. For thou hast declared this day, that thou regardest neither princes
nor servants: for this day I perceive, that if Absalom had lived, and all we
had died this day, then it had pleased thee well.”
We are told that losing a child results in divorce in about
two out of three cases, because one or both parents get so caught up in the
loss and the sense of guilt their mate feels they no longer matter, and many
times the other children feel the same way.
Joab told David he would have to make a special effort to show he cared
if he did not want them all to leave him, in II Samuel 19:7. “Now
therefore arise, go forth, and speak comfortably unto thy servants: for I swear
by the LORD, if thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this
night: and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that befell thee from
thy youth until now.”
When David made the effort, the people came back, knowing he
was not blaming them for what happened, in II Samuel 19:8. “Then
the king arose, and sat in the gate. And they told unto all the people, saying,
Behold, the king doth sit in the gate. And all the people came before the king:
for Israel had fled every man to his tent.”
When someone dies, there is nothing we can do that will
bring them back or make everything right.
We can either spend the rest of our lives blaming ourselves or others,
or we can acknowledge the fact that that the person has died and and go on with
our lives. We will never forget them,
and there will always be a certain amount of pain, but we don’t need to keep
irritating th wound, If we change our
focus, the level of pain will eventually become less severe. If we stay fixated on the pain, we will drive
others away, and lose even more. It’s up
to us whether we get over the loss or not.
When David began to reach out to others, they began to come back to him,
and the same thing will happen for us.
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