The Old Testament is full of stories about real people doing real things that didn't work out like they planned.  The stories are brutal and consequential.  God's people.  Flawed.  Over and over again they refused to obey his laws and reaped the result.  Then they would pledge to do his will again.  It only lasted one or two generations.  They say history repeats itself and those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.  It has been four generations since the forties--at least.  I had children, they had children and they then had my great grandchildren.  In four generations people have lost their disgust for the things God forbids.  It is the new normal.

We have a history book that spans at least 5000 years of people doing the same things over and over again with the same results.  I can't help but wonder why people don't read it.  Why they don't take God's words of warning to heart.  When you do the wrong things, you will not have a right outcome.  There will be consequences.  You won't like them.  People ruin their lives with all sorts of sin.  The kinds of sin that God forbids.  And have to live with the aftermath.  They hurt, and the people that love them hurt--sometimes even more.

David was such a man.  Everyone remembers that "David was a man after God's own heart."  Because he was repentant.  But he suffered the consequences--even though he belonged to God.  He kidnapped a woman, raped her (she had no say in the matter) and then killed her husband.  For the rest of his life, David reaped the results of those sins.  His child by Bathsheba died--God told him that his punishment was that the child wouldn't live.  His oldest son raped his half sister Tarah.   David's third son killed the first son.  And his third son betrayed him.  David never had peace in his family again.  Yes, he repented.  But what he did followed him the rest of his life.

Payday someday.