The Real Reason Behind Our Worst Choices
We’ve all seen it happen. A respected leader gets caught in a scandal. A trusted friend betrays someone close to them. A family member makes a choice that destroys relationships. And we ask the same question: “How could they do that?”
The story of King David gives us an uncomfortable answer. David wasn’t a bad person who finally showed his true colors—he was someone after God’s own heart who made a series of devastating choices. And the reason why might hit closer to home than we’d like to admit.
The Problem Isn’t Where You Are
Many people read David’s story and focus on the wrong thing. They say David’s first mistake was staying home when he should have been at war. But we can’t place the sole cause of David’s sin on his decision to be in a particular place.
Think about it this way. A college student working retail security once caught a woman shoplifting. When confronted, she told her boyfriend: “See, this is why I don’t go shopping with my purse.”
The purse didn’t make her steal, just like being in Jerusalem didn’t make David sin. Simply being in the right place does not keep us from sin, nor does it keep us from sinning.
As Pastor Anthony explained, “The potential for David’s sin was a reality because of the condition of his heart, not the location of his dwelling.”
We love to blame our circumstances—our job, our friends, our stress levels, our environment. But here’s the hard truth: sin comes from within us, not from around us.
The Real Issue
- Our sin nature exists regardless of our surroundings
- Good locations don’t automatically produce good choices
- What’s in your heart will eventually be demonstrated in your life
How Pride Escalates Everything
David’s story shows us how moral failure really happens. It’s not a momentary lapse—it’s a calculated progression:
Step 1: The Look
David sees Bathsheba bathing and chooses to keep looking. The first sight should have been his stop point, but he doesn’t take it. Remember, this was the same David who once said, “God, I want to walk within your house with a pure heart.”
Step 2: The Investigation
Here’s where the story gets interesting. David doesn’t just ask a nearby servant who she is. The text says he “sent messengers.” He dispatched people to go find out who this woman was. This took time—time to think, time to reconsider, time to stop.
Step 3: The Revelation
When the messenger returns, the answer comes loaded with warnings: “This is Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, wife of Uriah the Hittite.”
Translation: This is your chief counselor’s granddaughter, married to one of your most loyal soldiers. These are people in David’s inner circle—people he’s known for years.
Step 4: The Dismissal of Boundaries
David hears all the red flags and ignores every single one. Why? Because David saw what he wanted, he wanted what he wanted, and he was going to get what he wanted.
David’s premeditated desire was so great that the boundaries he was given were completely dismissed.
This wasn’t passion overcoming reason. This was pride convincing David that normal rules didn’t apply to him.
When Covering Up Makes Everything Worse
After Bathsheba becomes pregnant, David tries to cover his tracks. He calls Uriah back from battle, hoping the soldier will sleep with his wife and provide cover for the pregnancy.
But Uriah’s response reveals the contrast between pride and integrity:
“The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in temporary shelters, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? By your life and the life of your soul, I will not do this thing.” —2 Samuel 11:11
Even when David gets Uriah drunk, the soldier refuses to go home. His integrity exposes David’s selfishness.
So David escalates to murder. He sends Uriah back to battle carrying his own death warrant—a letter instructing the commander to put Uriah in the most dangerous position and then abandon him.
The Tragic Irony
David is becoming the very thing that he never wanted to become. King Saul had tried to kill David by sending him on impossible missions, hoping he’d die in battle. Now David uses the exact same strategy against an innocent man.
This is what pride does—it doesn’t just lead to one bad choice, it demands increasingly worse choices to protect itself.
The Pattern We All Recognize
David’s story is uncomfortable because we recognize the pattern:
- We see something we want
- We rationalize why we deserve it
- We minimize the consequences
- We convince ourselves we can control the outcome
- When things go wrong, we double down rather than come clean
Throughout this whole passage, we see David’s pride. But if we’re going to be honest, we ought to also be able to see our own pride.
Why did David think he could get away with this? All of his servants knew what he did. They were all aware of what was going on. They saw it. Yet David proceeded anyway.
The Real Problem
He cared more about skipping out on the consequences of his sin and saving face in the eyes of the people than being right before God.
How often do we do the same thing? How often are we more worried about our reputation than our relationship with God?
When sin becomes real in our lives and we do things we know are wrong, so many times we’re more concerned about how we look in front of each other than our relationship with God and how we are in his sight.
Why This Matters Today
We can see an entire world around us fueled by pride, living the way they want to, doing what they want to, literally doing that which is right in their own eyes. And we might ask, “Why does that happen?”
It happens because of what’s in our hearts. The Bible tells us that each person is tempted when they are drawn away and enticed by their own evil desire. Then after desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin. When sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death (James 1:14-15).
The Universal Truth
- Pride tells us we deserve what we want
- Pride convinces us no one will know
- Pride says it will only affect us
- Pride promises we can stop anytime
We feed our own desires, justify our choices, abuse our positions, and magnify what we want while calling it what we deserve.
The Way Forward
David’s story doesn’t end with his failure—but this particular moment shows us how quickly pride can destroy everything we value. The solution isn’t better circumstances or stronger willpower.
The solution is recognizing that the problem starts in our hearts, not our situations. We need to get it right with God, and sometimes that means getting it right with other people too.
God’s way of David dealing with his sin would have been calling Uriah from the battlefield, calling in Bathsheba, and confessing his sin before God and before Uriah. Would that have been difficult? Absolutely. Would it have been better than murder? Without question.
Maybe pride is keeping you from doing something you know you ought to do, because pride is convincing you that you can just cover it up and move forward.
Remember This Truth
God’s ways are always best. Yes, there are consequences, and the consequences may be hard, but on the other side of it is life and freedom.
Reflection Question: Think about a recent choice you regret. What role did pride play—not just in the initial decision, but in how you handled the aftermath? What would it look like to "get it right with God" in that situation today?
