A Unique Intimacy With God
I love reading the account of David’s life in the Old Testament. It’s easy to see how delusional David got when he was trying to cover up and justify his immoral and deadly affair. That’s what sin always does to people. It makes them delusional. Especially when they are still living in the sinful relationship and scheming to justify it instead of repenting over it.
But even after all the ugliness that attached itself to David’s heart like a symbiote out of a Spiderman move, it was still said of him that he was a man after God’s own heart – despite his vile behavior. This doesn’t justify his choices or remediate the consequences of his sin, but it does speak volumes about the tenderness of David’s heart.
David had a unique intimacy with God.
We read that throughout the Psalms. He knew where to find God. He had a secret place. He had a shelter. He knew where to run to find the shadow of The Most High. And because he had that unique intimacy with God, he was big enough to receive the corrective rebuke from a brave friend like Nathan who held him accountable for his actions.
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” the Proverbs declare. We all need people like Nathan in our lives. I think one of the truest marks of a person whose heart is after God is that they are tender enough to allow true friends to speak into their lives whether the sin is something more concealed like compromising your integrity or something as immorally blatant as adultery.
People with a heart after God can accept criticism when it is redemptive and not punitive. There will always be people who salivate over our demise. They want to see us fall. They want us to hurt. They are punitive in their criticism. But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother and those who bring redemptive criticism into our lives. They seek our good. They are after our growth and spiritual maturity. They are willing to fight for us. The will speak the truth in love even when it hurts because they know it is for our good. They ultimately want us to win and not lose.
A person after God’s own heart is a person who has a unique intimacy with God that makes them strong enough to accept constructive criticism when it’s valid.