A downward spiral

Yesterday I was leading a Bible study for a group of retired women, and we were looking at 2 Samuel 11, about David's disastrous connection with the beautiful Bathsheba...and it reminded me of looking at the same passage with some teenagers in Highgate a year or so ago. It's one of those bits of the Old Testament that reminds us just how helpful narrative can be to us as we try to live as God's people. It's great to have a command ('Do not/Do...') but it's also very useful to see what happens when things go right/wrong in real life.
So it is with the account of David and Bathsheba - whoever's writing this account (inspired by the Holy Spirit) makes no comment of their own about what happened - they just give us the facts, and never say 'In doing this, David had really, really stuffed up, what an idiot.'
And 2 Samuel 11 (do look it up) shows us the downward spiral of a man who had been such a great king over God's people, and had always sought to follow God. First he sees a beautiful woman bathing (v2) - and, crucially, he allows his thoughts to dwell on her even though he's already married. He finds out about her (v3), and finds out she's married too. But still he carries on on his destructive path, and in v4 he summons her and sleeps with her. When Bathsheba gets pregnant he tries to cover it up, and ends up having her husband killed to hide the shame (v14-17). And so David, from one long, lingering glance at a beautiful woman, finishes up committing adultery and murder.
It's a stark reminder that sin starts in our minds. Before David slept with Bathsheba, he had to think about her. Before he summoned her to his bed, he had to look at her and keep looking at her instead of away. If he'd recognised and dealt with the sins of his thoughts, he'd never have sinned in his actions.
So it is for us. We all struggle with sin, and if we're being honest right now we could name three or four sins we know we commit in our actions. But all those sins begin in our minds, and it's there that we need to tackle it. Rude words begin with impatience in our minds. Laziness begins with a selfish mindset. Sexual sin begins with lustful thoughts.
And so when we ask God for help in stopping a particular sin, we need to ask him to help us as much with our thoughtlife as with our actions. Rather than attacking the end of the spiral (in David's case, adultery and murder) we need to attack the root of the spiral (in David's case, staring at naked married women). All this we see from the straightforward narrative of 2 Samuel 11; a great reminder of how vital it is to read our Old Testaments, to learn from the mistakes and examples of members of God's people who have gone before us.