“She said, ‘Then let the king invoke the LORD his God to prevent the avenger of blood from adding to the destruction, so that my son will not be destroyed.’ ‘As surely as the LORD lives,” he said, “not one hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.’ Then the woman said, ‘Let your servant speak a word to my lord the king.’ ‘Speak,’ he replied. The woman said, ‘Why then have you devised a thing like this against the people of God? When the king says this, does he not convict himself, for the king has not brought back his banished son? Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.” -2 Samuel 14:11-13
In our day and age, virtually nothing is agreed to if it’s not in writing or signed into contract—even if it was first agreed to verbally—most especially in corporate America. In our everyday lives, it’s easy to agree to doing something and not taking our obligations seriously, particularly if there are no immediate consequences for not sticking to what we say we’ll do.
Yet today’s Bible reading highlights the value of being a person of honesty, of sticking by what we say. Here we have Absalom, one of King David’s sons, who had done some very wicked things and was estranged from Jerusalem after running away from fear of death for his actions. A woman uses King David’s integrity to convince him to spare Absalom’s life … and he does.
Often we might agree or commit to doing things—especially for GOD’s kingdom—and we may not feel to do those things for one reason or another, but we ought to always be persons of integrity, letting our yes be yes and our no be no. May we never allow our actions to speak louder than our words, but may they be a mirror reflection of each other.
“The king said to Joab, ‘Very well, I will do it. Go, bring back the young man Absalom.’ ” -2 Samuel 14:21
(c) 2010 Maq (My Anointed Quill) Palmer
Once again a timely reminder to watch and weigh our words. Once uttered they can’t be taken back and need to be backed up with action. May the Lord’s people be as upright in keeping their word as He is with them.