The Life Challenges Podcast
Modern-day issues from a Biblical perspective.
The Life Challenges Podcast
David & Bathsheba: The Cost of Hidden Sin with Professor Emeritus Mark Braun
Special guest Professor Emeritus Mark Braun joins us to unpack the familiar biblical narrative of David and Bathsheba through a more nuanced lens. The story reveals deeper complexities than typically discussed, showing how a powerful king compartmentalized his life while covering up serious sin until confronted by Nathan the prophet.
This episode offers profound insight for anyone struggling with hidden sin or its aftermath. While forgiveness is complete and unconditional, consequences often remain. The good news? "It's the knowledge of forgiveness that better equips you to handle the scars." Through David's story, we learn that God's grace meets us in our darkest moments, offering not an escape from consequences, but the strength to face them with hope.
Find strength and courage in your faith at this year’s FEARLESS FAITH Conference. Inspired by Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous,” join us Saturday, September 13, at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in Jackson, Wisconsin, for presentations on navigating life’s storms, understanding God’s peace, and engaging in crucial conversations about euthanasia, anorexia, abortion, prenatal genetic testing, and more. Hear powerful journeys of faith through loss and hope. Don’t miss this empowering event! $50 in person or $40 virtual. Register now: https://christianliferesources.com/resources/events/2025-conference/
on today's episode.
Mark Braun:I think the story at that point shows how someone in this position can compartmentalize his life. He's still sitting there as the king Nathan decides, and of course, jesus did this so well. You sometimes read at the end of a story that the Pharisees were angry because he realized he was talking about them. But Nathan goes at this telling him a story which he thinks is about somebody else. And so, as he's functioning as a king and he hears something else that's unjust, he gets very angry and he says the man who did this should surely die. Well, the Old Testament law has never said that you should die for stealing your neighbor's sheep. You shouldn't make compensation plus 20%. That was the law. I would be a terrible case of the punishment being greater than the fine, and it's in that context that Nathan says you're the man and what David did was punishable by death.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with Pastor Bob Fleischman, and we have a special pastor guest with us. Today too, pastor Professor Mark Brown is joining us. We are going to be talking about probably a fairly common or familiar Bible story to people, kind of breaking it down and talking about this topic of hidden sin and cover-up. But before we get into today's topic, we would just love to have you, professor Brown, tell us a little bit about yourself, to give us a little background.
Mark Braun:Okay, thank you, krista. Well, I've been a parish pastor way back when late 70s and 80s in western Michigan and then western Wisconsin, and I taught at Wisconsin Lutheran College. I probably had you for a couple of classes or you had me for a couple of classes.
Christa Potratz:I still remember my B, the B.
Paul Snamiska:Not the B I gave you, but the B you earned.
Mark Braun:I always correct that for students. I've been retired now for four years and still do some researching and some writing, so I'm glad to be back.
Christa Potratz:And we have had you on the podcast before, and so you are a returning guest to the podcast. So thank you so much again for being here today with us.
Mark Braun:Is this like SNL, where people keep track of how many times they come back, or you don't do that yet we're not quite there? Yet no it took them a while too, Maybe someday.
Christa Potratz:Well, the story that we really want to talk about and use as our topic and talking point for today is the story of David and Bathsheba. Can you give us a summary synopsis of that story and kind of refresh that for us?
Mark Braun:Well, the story itself is one of the better-known Bible history lessons of the Old Testament, and there is the question of how much can you tell children? You know because it's standard on the list of the Bible history lessons. We were saying beforehand that perhaps, let's say, middle school-aged children are a little bit more familiar with things like, you know, dad's leaving or divorce than they were in my time. I looked in the teacher's sort of guideline for teaching this story and says well, you'll have to say what happened, but you don't want to dwell on these topics. To me, the striking thing about this well-known story is that there's a lot more going on, I think, than what we're immediately aware of or than we usually talk about.
Mark Braun:I think there are several other things to keep in mind. One of them is that probably this happened when David was in his early 50s, and I'm not a believer in male menopause as a biological thing, but psychologically I think it happens that some men can, especially powerful men can get to a point where they feel like they have no challenges left. What am I going to do? It's a telltale sign that the story starts out by saying it was the season for men to go off to war, but David went and is in his palace Right away. You've got somebody who is bored, maybe, or has lost interest in what he has done, but having been a king now for two decades, he was a man who was used to getting his way. He asks for things and he gets them, and it's ironic to me that a lot of ways that this story has been handled more popularly is that it was some kind of a love affair or a one-night stand, which turned out to be more than that.
Mark Braun:I've never seen the movie David and Bathsheba and I'm not inclined to, but I remember hearing that maybe Uriah was treated like the bad guy, like he was sort of a bad husband, and she finally found her guy in David, and this wonderful article here by John Schutzi at our seminary says this is really a wrong way to understand this. She probably had no ability to even know why the king was asking her to come to the palace, and if it would have had to do with anything, it might have been with her husband who was a soldier. But how often would a president of the country talk to a wife about one particular soldier? And I don't think Professor Schutze goes so far as to say that David raped her, which is a pretty provocative thing to say, but she had no voice in this at all.
Mark Braun:I think another thing we have to keep in mind is that David had collected a lot of wives by this time. And again, it seems to me that the way this story is known by a lot of average people in the pew is that David was a really good guy, except for this one mistake. I remember sitting in church in a Bible class one day. They used to have the 20-minute Bible studies. They're 19-minute.
Bob Fleischmann:Bible studies yeah.
Mark Braun:And I wasn't teaching it. But I was sitting at a table and there was this man next to me who was kind of reading off on his own. And here he is reading the second part of 2 Samuel 5, which says in those days David also took this wife, this wife, this wife, this wife, and names off their names and where they came from. And he looked at me and says did David have other wives? And I said, oh yeah, and I gave him kind of a quick course in how he'd had Michael, saul's daughter, and then he'd have Abigail, which Solomon later did to a T. He was using marriages as political chess pieces to keep the country together. We don't talk about that. But when it comes to David and Bathsheba, this was not the first time he did this. This was sort of the crowning event like this although he may not have taken anybody else's wife, but he was a man who was used to getting his way and she would have had nothing to say. Now, when Bathsheba is older and David is really old, she's a pretty savvy king's wife and she knows how to protect her son Solomon to get the throne. A third thing I would suggest this is a little bit more conjecture is that the general assumption we take about this story is that David called Uriah home so that he would be with his wife and that, therefore, people would think that the baby was his. And there is the detail in the story that she says she had just gone through her monthly cleansing following her menstrual cycle, which means that she was not pregnant and that her husband hadn't been home. And so we think well, what David wanted to do was to have Uriah come home. He'd be so glad to see his wife, and then they would assume that was his baby. Uriah, however, turns out to be a saint and he knows thatI mean, david knew this but was hoping Uriah wouldn't follow. It—was that David knew that there was a certain sense of holy war where the men were not to be with women, and that was to help so that the warfare didn't turn into rape and pillage. He should not have suggested that Uriah go home. First he tries it once and he doesn't go home, then he gets him drunk, he doesn't go home, and so then he's going to get rid of him, and so that didn't work, and so well, he'll die in battle. And David really sort of endangered his entire army by giving the orders to the general to make sure that Uriah is in the worst of the fighting. But you know, it seems like the nine months just don't quite work out that way. It would have taken a while for her to know she was pregnant, a while longer to try to have him come home and conceive a child. And you know, if a full-term baby is born then it's not going to work out that this would have been when Uriah came home. And so later on in the story it says that Nathan said to him you have caused the enemies of Israel to blaspheme.
Mark Braun:There were more people that knew this than we might think. I remember listening to one teacher who says well, what do you think David hoped would happen when he called Uriah home? Think David hoped would happen when he called Uriah home? The usual explanation is that he hoped that they would assume it was his baby. But she said what if Bathsheba was already showing that she was going to have a baby and her husband comes home and obviously finds that she's been with somebody and in a rage, perhaps he would fly off and kill her? Now I'm not sure that she's been with somebody and in a rage perhaps you would fly off and kill her. Now I'm not sure that that's correct, but everything about that made me think differently about this and I checked.
Mark Braun:There is not a verse in David's life that ever says he loved anybody Not women, not men like Jonathan. I don't know if there's a verse that says he loved the Lord or, as his son Solomon, loved every woman he saw. And in the end, I think one of the hard parts of David's character that we have to deal with is that he could be extremely focused and cold about some things. And there are other stories again which we don't teach so much in Bible history. But that comes out. But then later in his life he is saying what have I done here? This sin just will not go away. It's forgiven, but it is always before me, and I think that's from a practical and a pastoral point of view, the kind of thing that people are, more than we realize are agonizing over something. Things we thought were fun to get away with in our 20s become things that keep us awake at night when we get older.
Bob Fleischmann:What Mark's describing is what I've often referred to as a flannel graph story. I know it dates me from when I was in Sunday school and you would get these very simplistic. You'd have the flannel graph and they'd have the characters up there and trying to always keep the story and you pick on different elements of the story that we just have a tendency to gloss over. We just we kind of fly past those notes and the one section at the end of the account where he comforts her. That was probably one of the rare times. You know that. And his encounter with Jonathan, where he has a little bit of a heart, seems to be the exception to the rule than the rule with David, because when I've taught this in preaching and in teaching, I've always had difficulty imagining the ruthlessness of orchestrating the execution of Uriah. I mean, how do you? Like you said, he's been in office for a couple of decades, he's a powerful man and he can make this happen, and there's a coldness about him that.
Mark Braun:Well, and we look at the story. As I mentioned, some of these stories aren't in the Sunday school curriculum, but David's first wife is Michael, whom he gets. Michael is Saul's daughter. He gets her as the prize for defeating Goliath. Now, in a political sense, this is a good thing for him because he'll want to have his kingship legitimized by being married to the daughter of Saul. He knows he's been anointed but he has to wait his time Because Saul is chasing him around the countryside trying to kill him. Saul gives Michael to a different man Years later, after David comes to power, one of the things he sees to is that he has Michael essentially kidnapped and brought back to the palace.
Mark Braun:And there's one story where he also at the same time brought the ark back that had been stolen by the Philistines and they all got apparently some kind of boils on their body when they had it. David was so excited that he danced before the Lord before it, which was made a big deal of in the movie Footloose. You know, he danced before the Lord and Michael, who is a virtual prisoner of David, says well, how glorious was the king of Israel today dancing naked before the servant girls. And he said to her. You will have no more children by me, and she didn't have any by him, and so he cut her off for the rest of her life.
Mark Braun:And I would tell students here you see, two of the major qualities of David, which what they have in common is that whatever he did, he did it all the way. When he celebrated, he sang and he danced, and when he was angry and wanted something, he was driven to get it. And this is a picture of David we just don't get. We talk about him, the sweet singer of songs, but we tend to pick out those parts that help to make the point and don't teach the rest of them.
Christa Potratz:Hearing both of you talk, too, about just the power of David and everything. The big thing was really that cover up and I think he just really felt like he could get away with it, just had that power, had that feeling that you know, okay, I did this, I'm going to get away with it, and he just went. I mean he just kept going to greater and greater lengths to try to cover it up and feeling like, okay, he could get away with it. And then when he kills Uriah, he probably thought he had succeeded in that that's very possible.
Mark Braun:I mean, I think the most treacherous thing of the whole story is how David sends the message to Joab, his general, to have this kind of formation and put Uriah in the heat of the battle, sends it back with Uriah.
Christa Potratz:Yes, I know he's carrying his death sentence in his back pocket.
Mark Braun:And you know, the Old Testament often seems to not make judgment statements about things that people do. I think of when Jael lured Cicero into her tent and then nailed his head to the floor, and you get to anything. Was this a good thing or a bad thing? In the next chapter, deborah is praising her for what she's done. But this story about David after all this was done, it says the thing David had done displeased the Lord. And I would think, well, this one I could have figured out by myself. But that isn't the point.
Mark Braun:This is here because when the Lord says that in the Old Testament, it is really severe and with all the blessings that David had experienced all of his life, the kind of home that he grew up in, and his children were not growing up in that kind of home because he had the multiple wives.
Mark Braun:And there are other ugly stories about David's life. There's that hymn about that says Thou on my head in early youth did smile and though rebellious and perverse, meanwhile thou hast not left me often as I left thee. And that's really the near tragedy that David is coming to. I also wonder if, after you know, he thought it was okay that he got through it and not that it was all right morally but I mean, I've got this child. Maybe he loved this woman, but it doesn't say so but that this was plaguing him so much that when Nathan finally confronts him he makes no excuses and you might expect that he would have. This is a terrible life. I have so much pressure my wives don't understand me that he was almost relieved to say I've sinned against the Lord, which you may find also to be true in counseling sometimes too that there's a certain sense that the running is just not worth it anymore.
Bob Fleischmann:When you read the Psalms of David, there's that strong introspective element to them that a lot of times like when I was growing up and I was listening to the Psalms in church and stuff like that it was more like let's just get through this so we can move on in the service. And then, as you get older, you begin to see that he's bringing out parts in his life that either tormented him or drove him to excessive glee. Well, that's exactly the way I've seen David is internally. He knows I've crossed a line, but now I have to manage it, because God does point out to him that you know you're going to bring shame.
Bob Fleischmann:This is, you become a laughingstock. You know you make it blasphemes God in front of the others, and David had to have known that. I mean, you don't communicate with God for the past two decades the way David did, and you don't do the kinds of things with Goliath, and you have the encounters with Saul and Saul trying to kill him and so forth, and then come back and think I'm getting away with this.
Mark Braun:The sense of having such great power makes you almost blind. It's just not going to come down on me. And yet he could have kept it more quiet than he did even after it was done. And yet he says in Psalm 51, then I will teach transgressors your ways. He is going to become a spokesman for the terrible things that he did, but also the way God would still forgive him. Now God is not expecting every one of us to come to that kind of conclusion. If we have a sin like that in our lives, I would still say the biggest person we lie to is often ourselves. We may find it difficult to face what we have done, but I remember asking Dr Becker in class once about I had a problem with in the service where you say I forgive you all your sins. But I said but you don't know whether they believe or not. And he must have been bothered by it, because he called me by my first name while he was explaining it and I think he was really good.
Bob Fleischmann:He didn't do that he didn't call anybody by their first name usually Mr.
Mark Braun:So-and-so is the best you got, and he says but it's true whether you believe it or not, and your prayer will be if you don't believe it now, I pray that you'll believe it when you're older. So sometimes the 65-year-old is finally repenting for something that he really didn't grasp when he was younger and God's mercy allowed him to live this long to see this.
Bob Fleischmann:You know it's interesting.
Bob Fleischmann:You point that out because Becker in class once had pointed out that if you begin to adopt the notion that you think is right and it seems to run contrary to Scripture and it just doesn't seem right, not making sense, becker used to invoke the passage that says in time this will be made clear to you, and he used to always just say sometimes you just have to sit still and kind of grow up.
Bob Fleischmann:Really that's how I took it and it's absolutely true. I was just explaining to somebody the other day that I've read the Bible numerous times and I've been going through it. My goal is to read through the entire Bible in about a third of the year and I've been taking all sorts of notes. I've already got 13 pages of notes and I've only been at it for a little over a month. But one of the things that is striking me is how much richer it is now than the last time I did this. You see things that you didn't see before and it's almost embarrassing. You know you think of all the people I've taught and written and stuff and preached the sermons and so forth and you're thinking I just now finally feel like I might be almost qualified to do all that stuff.
Mark Braun:But that's the good answer to people who say you know, I'm 19. I went to Lutheran schools all my life. I hate going to chapel because there's nothing new. Well, the Bible hasn't changed, but you're changing all the time and since the last time you heard this story, this has happened, or that happened.
Bob Fleischmann:Well, and when I look at the story of David and Bathsheba, I'm always in the back of my mind. I'm always echoing. You know that all Scripture is written for your learning, and so there has to be a very practical reason why I need to know this Now. Quite honestly, however, sorted the details about David and Bathsheba and so forth, it's not a unique story.
Bob Fleischmann:I mean it's happened throughout all the generations. Stories like this and worse have gone on. So why is this? And I sometimes have wondered now, especially, like I said, going through and reading at this later stage in my life, reading through Scripture, I sometimes wonder if it's the introspection that we do see in David, as an older man, you know, looking back, you know please don't remember the sins of my youth.
Bob Fleischmann:How many times that you're mumbling that all the time. It's kind of like now that I'm looking back I wish I hadn't done it that way, I wish I hadn't said that, I wish I hadn't. You know those kinds of things and I always worry that people sometimes, when we do sermons on simple stories that sound simple, that we overlook you know the main point, because I think a lot of people walk away with the main point of you know, don't watch naked women on the rooftop. And that's not the point. It's a far bigger point than that. And perhaps maybe the greatest point of it all is he did find forgiveness. There were still consequences for the sin, which is something that people have difficulty accepting, but he still found forgiveness.
Mark Braun:Didn't you have the sense sometimes, when you would be talking with somebody who had made a big mistake, that they would say something like can't you make it as though this never happened?
Bob Fleischmann:Yeah.
Mark Braun:And you can't do that.
Christa Potratz:Well, and I mean I think too, just thinking about this idea of covering up the sin and stuff too, is that you look at the story, it just really seems like David did get away with it if it hadn't been for Nathan coming to him. He had covered it up, he had now killed, he had done the murder, he had taken Bathsheba as his wife. I mean, some people probably knew, but I think it was that it was probably, as you were saying, eating him up inside too, and but then I mean having Nathan come show him and and tell him and getting it out in the open just kind of took it to a different level.
Mark Braun:Yeah Well, nathan had said to him, because you have given the enemies the opportunity to blaspheme, he said that the sword will never depart from your family and you see things David go through later in his life that you hope you don't have to go through as an old man and see this in your family. And he alone could be in the position of saying this is all happening because of what I did.
Christa Potratz:And that stays with you in other situations or situations today, with covering up sin. Is the point that it doesn't ever go away and that God knows everything and that we have to live with consequences? Or is there more to kind of draw with?
Mark Braun:that I think that's a good point to make, though that point. During Lent I deviated from the series and preached on the first part of Psalm 51 and I said this Psalm depicts the high cost of sinning how it never. The sin is always before us, but there's anything we can do about it to fix it. Only God can fix this. Even though all these sins are against God, even though we think that we are only harming some other person, I don't think young people have ever changed that. They think they're invincible. They think they're going to be different than their parents were invincible. They think they're going to be different than their parents were. And then, you see, certainly for people who have long ministerial experience in one place, they see the effects of these things in families as they go on. There certainly is always that.
Mark Braun:I also think that there is a sense of we when we hear about stories like this in the public medium. We want to see them get theirs. And this practice of inviting all the family members into the courtroom when a person has been found guilty or pleaded guilty, to have them have one last chance, to just wish he goes to hell and scream at him and curse him, and sometimes their pastor is holding their hand because he's saying, well, this is something they need to do. It's closure. I don't know, I'm not a psychologist so I can't say, but when they say to people, you have to get your anger out, sometimes I think that act makes their anger worse or it makes it continue. Compassion doesn't come naturally for us. It's more the sense of let's laugh about that some more and make jokes about it and scold them Because partly we're grateful it's not us and it makes us feel superior in some kind of way.
Bob Fleischmann:Mm-hmm.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, you know, and Nathan too comes and talks to David and illustrates that picture with the man who had the lamb that the kids played with and everything too. David got so mad at that story and he kind of failed to see the connection right away with that. But it resonated with David too because it was like, oh man, that would just be terrible to do something like that would just be terrible to do something like that.
Mark Braun:I think the story at that point shows how someone in this position can compartmentalize his life. He's still sitting there as the king Nathan decides, and, of course, jesus did this so well. You sometimes read at the end of a story that the Pharisees were angry because he realized he was talking about them. But Nathan goes at this telling him a story which he thinks is about somebody else. And so, as he's functioning as a king and he hears something else that's unjust, he gets very angry and he says the man who did this should surely die.
Mark Braun:Well, the Old Testament law has never said that you should die for stealing your neighbor's sheep. You should make compensation plus 20%. That was the law. It would be a terrible case of the punishment being greater than the fine, and it's in that context that Nathan says you're the man and what David did was punishable by death, even though he was the king. What the Old Testament laws continue, the point they continue to make, is that nobody is above the law, not even the king. And so David, I think, in that moment, also faced what should happen to him. But see, he compartmentalized that he could be doing his job in one part of his life and yet having this going on in another part and human beings have a tremendous facility to do that.
Bob Fleischmann:I'm a big history nut, loved history, but I have found that history has always meant the most to me when it talked to me, when've got to have enough insight to see not only that this could be me, but in some senses it is me. You know, and you have to look at all the stories that way. When you get to the end of the story of David Bathsheba, he goes through this. You know where the child is now sick and he goes through the mourning practices of the. You know he's in sackcloth ashes, you know he's. And then they were afraid to tell him that the child had died. And it's almost well.
Bob Fleischmann:When you said compartmentalized, that kind of came to mind. It's almost like he had stuck this child dying over here and was front and center. But once the child died, that goes up on the shelf. I know I'll take on a different role, but I think it was a dramatic turning point for him. I mean, I think no turning points, 180 degrees but I think it was a turn that set him on the right path a little bit, because at some point he does get to the—he gets to the point where he's writing the Psalms point.
Mark Braun:He does get to the uh, he gets to the point where he's writing the psalms. Yeah well, and he, as I say, he faces a lot of personal sadness in those last 20 years he's he's more of a broken man but I think lost some of his children.
Mark Braun:He's a much better man he has and he realizes that that continues to be part of his failing, that because of what he's done he doesn't have the position to really teach his children or take responsibility for them. I mean, we always pick on Absalom for revolting against David, but Absalom was. What was her name? Tamar? Tamar was the daughter by one mother who was raped by the son of another mother and there's such a telling statement there. He wanted her so badly and she says we shouldn't do this. And after he has her it says that the hatred he felt for her now was more than the desire that he'd felt. So, like Oscar Wilde says, sometimes tragedy is getting what you want.
Mark Braun:And Absalom, who was a full brother to Tamar, waited for David for two years to do something in his own family about this and he didn't. So when Absalom is standing in the line about chapter 15 and people are waiting to see his father and he says you know, if I were king I would see that you got justice, he had a point that he had not seen justice done in his own family. But David had kind of forfeited the moral authority in his own family to confront things like this. So when we do something underhanded or conniving or cheating, our kids are watching and we lose something we can say to them. I think what we still have to say, which is still true, is that if what I've done is wrong, then it's wrong, because God says it's wrong and it doesn't make it right that I did this. And finally, every parent has to say don't be like me in this, because I was wrong, and that might be a strong thing for a child to hear.
Bob Fleischmann:And, as a preacher, that has to almost be the pre-sermon prayer that we recite, because sometimes when you're calling out sin, you're talking about yourself, and that's always a hard one because it makes you come off feeling self-righteous.
Mark Braun:Yeah, I'd feel worse about the preacher who would say to himself well, this sin can't be a problem for me, because that's like an invitation for it to be that like an invitation for it to be that.
Christa Potratz:So bringing everything together, what maybe some kind of key takeaways too like, if somebody is feeling that they have maybe messed up like David beyond repair, what is the message for that individual or for that person?
Mark Braun:I think, before such a thing would happen, we have to take seriously what Paul says. Let a person who thinks he stands be careful that he doesn't fall, because we can get self-confident in this. We take the wrong lesson away from doing something which is, let's say, borderline wrong, but it seems that it was okay, and let that person be careful of that. You also take away that Nathan's forgiveness to David did not have a condition. It didn't have a expiration date. It didn't say if you do this or that, he says you have been forgiven. And sometimes believing that we're fully forgiven is really hard on us because our natural inclination is to want to try and make it up somehow. And David says well then, I will show transgressors your way, I'll create a clean heart in me. We become better people, but never the same.
Christa Potratz:That really resonates too, because the choices that you make, it sticks with you. Like there's just no way to undo the things we do in our life that are wrong. I mean, we're forgiven and we're wiped clean with forgiveness, but we still have to endure those consequences, sometimes for as long as we live. There's still the scars.
Bob Fleischmann:Yeah, but it's the knowledge of the forgiveness that better equips you to handle the scars.
Mark Braun:Yeah, it does. It does because your relationship with God is not harmed by this and therefore Relationship with God is not harmed by this, and therefore you can see them differently. This is hard medicine for me now, but I need this and a loving father is managing my life from now on. I used to tell students that the pain of giving of childbirth is very similar to the pain of passing a kidney stone, but with a kidney stone you just want to get it over with. Get it out of my body. There's no point to it. But you can forget the pain of childbearing because you have this child and women will go back to this. Some of them go back to it many times because the pain is outweighed by the blessing and so there will be pain in this, but because we know it's coming from a loving father, we know that ultimately he's not. Someday I shall see clearly that he.
Bob Fleischmann:And part of navigating this too is the role of confession. A lot of times I think we've simplistically said you should all confess your sins, and some of this stuff is hard. It's hard for people and hopefully you can go to your pastor and start there, and hopefully pastors are wise enough to recognize that the consequence of the sin continues after the forgiveness of the sin and so sometimes, as you cope with the consequence of it, you need that trusted, confidant that will keep telling you but all is okay with God. Very important, I think, to keep that in front of them.
Christa Potratz:Well, thank you, Thank you.
Bob Fleischmann:Bill.
Christa Potratz:Thank you, Professor Brown. You'll always be Professor Brown to me.
Bob Fleischmann:And you'll always be that struggling student looking for a B.
Christa Potratz:No, thank you so much for joining us today and for talking to us about this, and we thank all of our listeners, too, for joining us, and if you have any questions on this topic, you can reach us at lifechallengesus. See you back next time. Bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christian life resources dot com. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at life challenges dot us, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit christian life resources dot com. May god give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
