We don’t always get what we deserve. Which encourages us to cut corners or take more than our share. When dubious actions are met with indifference, we’re emboldened to push a bit farther. Fudging on a tax form leads to cheating in a business deal. Lifting a few dollars from the petty cash drawer morphs into embezzling company funds.

But while our moves may go unnoticed, we can be assured that no action goes unrewarded. David wrote of the Lord:

To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.

The Lord responds appropriately to each of us. Walk with him in humility and enjoy his good hand. Embark on a deceitful path and experience God in a contrasting manner. The Lord does not match a devious life with his own underhanded tactics. Rather, he allows the actions of a conniving person to twist back upon themselves. You might say he gives each of us enough rope to hang ourselves.

And we often do exactly that. King David certainly did. But wonderfully, again like David, we can return in our brokenness and enjoy the appropriate response of a heart soft to the Lord.

2 Samuel 22 in Through the Bible in 2024

Photo by Mahdi Bafande