One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful ... 2 Samuel 11:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 14, 2013): 2 Samuel 11

Can I admit that I sometimes have trouble understanding “The Lord’s Prayer” – well, at least with one line in it. The line is the one that asks God to not lead us into temptation. And part of my problem is this – when did I ever need God to lead me into temptation, I do quite well on that end myself. Do I want God to lead me into temptation, of course not! But that is seldom (or never) my problem. My problem is that I make the decision to lead myself into temptation.

I do not think that I am alone at this point. Our problem has always been that we lead ourselves into temptation; we go exactly to the places where we know that we will be tempted to be active in things that we should not be involved in. That’s the way it was in the Garden of Eden. We have to wonder why, with all of the Garden of Eden at their disposal, Adam and Eve stayed near the one tree that they were forbidden to eat fruit from. Why would they not have gone to the other end of the Garden? But we do not do that. We seem to want to stay close to the things that tempt us into wrong action.  And after we have been tempted and have decided to participate in the behavior, then we often chastise ourselves for being weak willed. But our will was never really the problem. Our decision to go to places where we know we will be tempted is the problem. If we would refrain from the places where we know we will be tempted we would not need to test the strength of our will.

One evening, David got up from his bed and went up to walk on the roof of the palace. Women in ancient times were not that different from today – they enjoyed a hot (or warm) bath. And often what they would do was to place a tub of water on the roof of their houses and let the warmth of the day heat the water. Then, in the evening, the woman would go up on the roof and take a bath. All of this David knew. And David’s palace would have been the highest building in the neighborhood – giving the king a great view of the rooftops of all the houses around him. The question that maybe we need to ask is this – when David got up from his bed in the evening of the day and went to walk on the roof, what is it that he expected to see?

David had committed himself to two actions. The first was that even though God had seemed to make it clear that David’s presence needed at the front of the war, David had decided not to go. God had already sent him hints that military success depended on the king’s presence (2 Samuel 10). But still, David stayed at home in Jerusalem. The second issue was that he went up to the roof in the evening of the day. Both actions of David lead him into temptation.

Temptation, by itself, is not a sin. But temptation, by its very nature, will lead us to sin. As we pray that God will not lead us into temptation, maybe the commitment we need to make to God is that we will not lead ourselves into temptation either – and in the process preserve the strength of our will.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 12