The Instinct of Reputation: The Story of DavidSample

David Cursed

One of the painful consequences of David’s sins was how the same sins played out in the lives of his children. David’s home became so broken that his own son, Absalom, rebelled against him and marched on Jerusalem.

Caught off guard, David was forced to flee in the night. He fled his own palace and capital city. His sorrow was greater than the loss of a city, David fled from his own son.

As David and his men went, a man named Shimei stood on a hill above their retreat and began to speak curses over David, kicking a man while he was already down. “Get out you worthless man of blood,” Shimei called. He kept going. “You are a man of blood and God is bringing judgment on you, taking the kingdom from you.”

It may be common for today’s rulers to get heckled by a man in the crowd, but in the ancient world, that was a quick way to get yourself killed. Abishai, one of David’s most faithful and seasoned warriors, had heard enough. No one talks to the king like that. Abishai offered to take off the man’s head.

But David stopped Abishai. “If God has commanded him to curse me, who am I to stop him,” David responded. So as they went, so went Shimei, cursing, and throwing dirt down on David.

That is not the same David who previously used murder to protect his reputation. He now spares a man's life at the expense of his reputation. What had changed?

I think the exposing of David’s sin and his subsequent confession and repentance changed him. He not only repented of his sins, but he recognized the way protecting his reputation had blinded him to them and motivated him in ways he sought never to repeat.

David was not perfect. He certainly sinned again, but something now seemed more important than his reputation. God had already exposed him by one prophet. David would not be blind to it again. He cared more about the possibility of what God might be doing and saying than he did preserving his public image.

That was a lesson learned through real pain and consequences, but I hope by recognizing it in David’s life, you might be able to learn the lesson on your own. It is easy to become obsessed with your reputation. It’s easy to become obsessed with protecting it. It’s easy to dismiss anyone who might threaten the image you seek to project. But there are more important things than what others think. The most important: what God thinks.

Embracing integrity means recognizing that there are certainly things wrong with our lives, things that we’ve not fully recognized. We listen and humbly entertain that God might be pointing to something we would prefer to ignore. David might appear weaker by the world’s evaluations, but we recognize that his ability to entertain the possibility of his own sin makes him stronger. It is true in your life as well.

What does it look like to grow in integrity?