It’s Just Not That Serious

I saw this sentence on a t-shirt about two weeks ago and my immediate reaction was that of a relationship. One person thinking of the other, “It’s just not that serious”. But then about a week later a few other situations that this shirt might be referring to popped into my head. How many times in life have we used that sentence? We often get so wrapped up into situations without thinking it thru, without thinking of the latter consequences we will face. Failing grades, a shaky relationship, slacking off at work, all these situations are often patched up with an “it’s just not that serious”.

One very good example of this, David. Not David the pizza guy or David your neighbor’s cousin. David, as in King David! (Oooooh, has the bulb gone off yet?) Yes David was a great worshipper, perhaps even the best but there once was a time were David thought he could apply this sentence to his life and everything would be all right. Wrong! Let’s take a look at 2 Samuel 11:2-4; everything could seem it wasn’t that serious right, until verse 5. Whoops. For the next few chapters I can almost hear David stating this sentence over and over as he tried to fix what he had done. All the while thinking that it wasn’t “that serious”. Skip a few verses ahead until verse 16 where it says “…some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.” For those of you who are not too familiar with this story or perhaps don’t have a bible at hand to check this out now here’s a little background on what happened.

In a nutshell: David is king; one night he sees a woman and decides to sleep with her. This woman is married to Uriah, who serves in David’s army. This woman becomes pregnant. David decides to cover up what he did by trying to send his soldier home to sleep with his wife. Uriah is far too loyal to David to leave him while everyone is at war. David’s plan fails, twice. Eventually David sends Uriah to the frontline of this battle where he knows that Uriah will face death. Once Uriah is out of the picture David takes his wife as his own so that no one will question when she has David’s child. The End.

David eventually repented of what he did and God removed his sin but David paid the consequences of his actions for quite a while. Same thing with us, we can do things sometimes hoping it won’t catch up to us but sooner or later it will. And when it does there will be consequences, probably not good ones either. Think about it, most of the times it’s not even worth it. Ever hear that a little yeast will work through a whole batch of dough (1 Corin. 5:6)? Some small action now can bring you a whole lifetime of consequences. So next time you catch yourself thinking “it’s just not that serious” the situation may be just a little more serious than you think.