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 By Rob Des Cotes
[other pieces By Rob Des Cotes]
I have found in David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do. Acts 13:22
Imagine having that said about you. The Lord identifying and affirming you as someone who is after His own heart. To know that God sees you as someone who will do everything He wants you to do must be one of the highest affirmations we could ever hope for. And perhaps being such a man or woman is not as idealistic a goal as we might think. After all, David did it.
We know enough about David to question what exactly God might mean in saying that David will do everything He wants him to do. What about Bathsheba? What about his parenting skills? What about all the violence and bloodshed that marked his life? What exactly does it look like, from the Lord's perspective, for a man or woman to be after God's own heart? It certainly can't be something that presumes a perfect life.
The phrase, after God's own heart implies someone who has taken aim towards the heart of God's will. But in this case, unlike an arrow that is trying to find its mark, it is the target itself that serves to keep the arrow focused. For David, it was the bulls-eye of Gods heart that worked to steady his aim whenever he wobbled. This was the corrective that kept returning him by an often circuitous route through valleys of error, contrition and restitution to the path of his first love.
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 This premise of David's life was what St. Ignatius would call our foundation principle. It is the reset button that keeps returning us back to our life's default settings. Even when he strayed, David's ultimate goal in life ensured that it would not be for long. Such was the Lord's confidence in this man's objectives that He could easily say, without qualification, that His servant will ultimately do everything I want him to do.
The life-quality that God affirms in David is that of inevitable obedience. The Lord knows that His servant will ultimately do all that God has willed for his life. As Paul would affirm in Rom. 14:4, he will stand because the Lord is able to make him stand. How might this same assurance apply to us? Is God perhaps much more confident of our obedience than we are? When we see our path as wandering, intermittent, or backsliding, does the Lord rest in the knowledge of our eventual obedience to everything He wants us to do?
The fact that the Lord recognizes that we are people on pilgrimage seems to be enough to assure Him of our inevitable arrival. Looking back, we will likely be able to see how we too, in setting our ultimate aim after God's own heart, have done everything the Lord wanted us to do.
July 17/2008
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