“The king said to Zadok, ‘Return the ark of God to the city. If I find favor in the sight of the LORD, then He will bring me back again and show me both it and His habitation. But if He should say thus, “I have no delight in you,” behold, here I am, let Him do to me as seems good to Him'” (2 Sam 15:25-26).
David’s words to Zadok reveal a man who has abandoned all concern for his reputation. He not only accepts all the consequences of his sinful actions but surrenders himself entirely to the will of God. In these two verses, David exemplifies what repentance looks like when we do it, not because we want to improve our conditions but because we genuinely desire to glorify God. For repentance is not the unpleasant pathway we must take to restore our glory. Instead, it is a sacrificial surrendering of our inflated egos and personal agendas for the glory of God.
“I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death” (2 Cor 7:9-10).
