And in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel, and they laid waste the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah, but David stayed at Jerusalem. - 2 Samuel 11:1 (REV)

In 2 Samuel 11 & 12, we see two realities. Both happened, but at different times and represent different things. In 2nd Samuel, we see David, king of Israel. Where do we see David? At home. Sitting on his keister and not doing what a king would normally be doing: overseeing his generals as they go out to battle.

David is not where he is supposed to be. He should be meeting with his generals. He should be motivating his armies. He should be praying and fasting and seeking out God’s direction for the safety and prosperity of Israel, but he’s back in Jerusalem. Twiddling his thumbs? Playing his harp? We don’t know what he was doing at all hours of the day when he held up in his palace. We do, however, know what he was doing on one specific evening.

David is out walking on the roof, where he shouldn’t be, and he sees Bathsheba bathing. David does not turn away from seeing the nakedness of this woman whom he is not married to. He stares. He dwells. He obsesses. She’s beautiful. He needs to meet her. To be with her.

David ends up having her come into his home, and he has sex with her and gets her pregnant. We may have seen this story happen in the lives of some people we know, but this is high profile. This is a problem. A bunch of people are going to know what has happened, and this is going to be hard to explain to Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, who is out at war, where he is supposed to be: fighting for the armies of the people of Yahweh. While the king is out preying upon the wife of his soldier.

David finds himself in a sticky situation, so he sends for Uriah and does his best to get Uriah to go have sex with his wife and cover his… keister. Uriah, however, cannot fathom such a thing while his comrades are off fighting a war. He refuses to even go visit his wife. This poses a major problem. People are going to know that Bathsheba is expecting, and they are going to know that Uriah hasn’t been with her in months, maybe longer. David tries multiple times, but no dice. Uriah is a man of honor and conviction, and that is not going to fly in this situation. David needs an out. David essentially puts out a hit job on Uriah. David cannot control his urges, so a good man dies.

The story unfolds. Uriah is dead. David marries his baby mama, and then the baby dies. Nathan the prophet comes to confront David and gets David worked up with a parable. David wants vengeance for the perpetrator in the story, but then the tables are turned when David is revealed to be the bad guy in the tale. David grieves, David repents, but the baby does not survive. It’s rough.

In 1 Chronicles 20, we see that it is the time when kings go out to war. And David goes out to war. And his armies thrive. He gets an awesome new crown. God blesses the armies of a king who acts in good faith. David is more than capable of doing the right thing, but even a man after God’s own heart can allow himself to fall off the rails.

Here’s the rub: Sometimes we get complacent. Sometimes we get lazy. Sometimes we do things, go places, consume content that we know we shouldn’t, but we’ve allowed ourselves to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we fall victim to the allure of the temptations of sin around us.

We’ve all allowed ourselves to be in bad situations that we could have avoided. Sometimes we may come out on top, but given enough opportunities to sin in the situations we create, we are bound to fall. We play with fire… and you know the cliché, but it’s true, we get burned.