I Didn’t Mean to Hurt Anyone

And David said to God, “Was it not I who gave command to number the people? It is I who have sinned and done great evil. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O LORD my God, be against me and against my father’s house. But do not let the plague be on your people.” 1 Chronicles 21:17

In my drug use and opioid diversion, I told myself that I wasn’t hurting anyone as long as I kept everyone else from knowing. When my addiction eventually came to light, my family was, of course, very much hurt. My illness didn’t remain just my illness, but rather, it made the whole family sick. That was a painful realization – that my bad behavior had hurt those I was supposed to love the most. I desperately wanted to go back and undo my actions, but it was too late. The damage to my family had been done.

We don’t fail in a vacuum and those closest to us are often hurt the most by our failures. King David learned this painful lesson in today’s passage. In the story, he angered God with his pride and self-reliance. In response, God sent a pestilence, killing 70,000, and threatened to destroy Jerusalem. Seeing his people suffer for his actions, David was distraught – It is I who have sinned and done great evil. But these sheep, what have they done? I’m sure David wished he could go back and undo his sin, but it was too late. The damage to his people had been done.

Unless we live alone on an island, we’re connected to other people. Our behavior impacts them and their behavior impacts us. The closer anyone is to us, the greater our impact. We may tell ourselves we’re not hurting anyone when we engage in secret sins like pornography, but sin spreads like a cancer, metastasizing through our lives and into the lives of those to whom we’re closest. Our illness sickens those around us. If we wish to avoid this, and if we wish to treat our loved ones as God intended, then we must daily do whatever it takes to cut the hurtful behavior out of our lives. We don’t fail in a vacuum.