Answered Prayers

Nathan spoke the judgment of the Lord that the child, conceived through the adulterous relationship between David and Bathsheba, would die. The child was born and became ill. David threw himself on the ground in grief and prayer. His servants pleaded with him to eat.

When the child did die, his servants were afraid. “If he is this bad off when the child was ill, what’s going to happen when we tell him the child is dead?”

David saw his servants talking among themselves and guessed that the child had died just as Nathan had told him. David got up, washed, and went in to eat. His servants were puzzled. “I don’t get it! Now that the child is dead, NOW he gets up and eats.”

David explained that while the child was alive there was hope that God might spare him, but when the child died, it wouldn’t have done any good to go on crying.

David didn’t blame God, or Nathan, or Bathsheba. He accepted the consequences of his own poor choices. He accepted what had happened, even when his prayers weren’t answered the way he would have liked. David went on with his life praising God, still strong in his faith – a man after God’s own heart.

--Anonymous