What your teen learned this past weekend in Edge!

David is one of the most well known kings of the Old Testament, but he was not the most likely of all men to be chosen to be king. He was a king after God’s heart (CCC 2579), yet he was far from perfect. He is an example to us of the faithfulness, mercy, and forgiveness of God, for while David was a great king, he also was a great sinner.

Just like David, God desires to do big things for you even though you are young. We all face “Goliaths” in our lives, but when we trust in the Lord we can overcome anything. David was not perfect, and just like David, we too struggle with sin, but the Lord is constantly calling us back into relationship with Him.

Sometimes we often believe that we have to wait until we are older to do something great for the Lord. But the story of David shows us that God wants to do big things through you and for you right now. You do not have to be older or stronger or taller to belong to the Lord, you just have to seek Him with your whole heart. Do not underestimate the great things you can do right now. St. Paul even reminds a young St. Timothy, “Let no one look down on you because of your youth, but set an example for believers in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.” And that is exactly what David did. He modeled what it truly meant to be a man after God’s own heart, even though he was only a teenager.  David grew into a very popular and beloved King do to his devotion to the Lord.  However, even the great King David sinned.  

Even though David was a man after God’s own heart and many of our favorite stories about him have to do with his great displays of fortitude, David was not perfect. During his time as King, David falls into a life of sin. It starts small when David chooses to stay back from battle, but then grows as he then falls in love with a married women, Bathsheba.  She finds herself pregnant and King David tries to hide it by calling her husband, Uriah, back from battle.  When he refuses to go along with his plan to stay the night with his wife, David's lies grow bigger and bigger until eventually he has Bathsheba's husband murdered on the battle field.  He and Bathsheba marry with only God knowing their grave sin.  David did not have remorse for his sin and was blind to what he had done.  The prophet Nathan comes and uses a story to convict David that everything he did was wrong.  David feels deep remorse and takes a time of penance and mourning for his sins against the Lord.  Although God forgave him, his first born son still died as a result of his sin.  He was devastated.  For many of us, we frequent the sacrament of Reconciliation and feel remorse for our sins, but we still have to pay the consequences for our choices.  Why do forgiven sins still have consequences?

Fr. Mike reminds us there are two consequences for our choices or every decision we make: in this life (the temporal world) and in the after-life.  It is important to understand that you matter to this world because you are made in the image and likeness of God.  If you matter, then your choices matter.  Your choices make a difference in this world – either for good or for bad.  

Jesus’ salvific act is conveyed to us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation – we are forgiven and that transforms our eternity.  The eternal consequences of our sins are washed away.  The eternal consequences of our sins that send us away from heaven are real; and those are removed when we participate in Confession (mortal sin), Baptism (all sin) and the Eucharist (venial sin).  However, there are still temporal or physical consequences in time that we experience not because God is trying to punish you; those consequences we experience are oriented towards our healing.   These are teaching moments.  Think about when you do something wrong when you are little – your parents forgive you, however you still have a punishment to understand the seriousness of what you did.  

If we hand over our lives to the Lord, our negative consequences can be redeemed; God can transform that suffering and let our hearts be purified, it humble us, gives us wisdom, and allows us to embrace a share in his cross.

When we come to church, everything may look great on the outside, but God may look inside and see that our heart isn't right. When we know that we have a heart problem, we need to do what David did. W e need to pray to God and say, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Do you have some things in your heart that shouldn't be there? I do. Let’s ask God to fix it!