Nathan:  My lord, I have a story to tell you.
David: Say on.
Nathan:  There were two men in a town, one was very rich and the other very poor.  The rich man had great flocks of sheep.  The poor man had only one little ewe lamb.  This lamb was like a member of the family.  His kids grew up with the little lamb and played with it like it was their sister.  The poor man cared for it and let it drink out of his own cup.  They even took naps together with the lamb sleeping in his arms.  Well, one day, the rich man had a friend in town and he wanted to prepare a nice dinner.  Instead of having his servants butcher one of his own sheep to prepare for the meal, he went and stole the ewe lamb from the poor man and butchered it for their dinner.
David (furious):  As surely as there is a God in heaven, that man deserves to die!  But not before he pays four times over the value of the ewe lamb and THEN he deserves to die for his utter lack of pity!
Nathan:  That rich man was YOU.

*****

Every time I read this passage in Scripture I think about the power of Nathan’s story.  He didn’t come to the king and say, “Listen, bud, you screwed up bad.  You coveted someone else’s wife, you killed an innocent man and committed a monumental act of injustice.”  Nathan could easily have done so.  Many times the prophets did address the kings in that straightforward manner.  And David would have listened.  But not here.  Nathan brought a finely crafted word picture to cause David to feel the full emotional weight of what he had done.

Imagine being David as he listened to the story.  I know it makes me burn every time I hear it.  My response to the rich man taking the precious and innocent treasure of the poor man is immediate anger.  Such wanton cruelty.  I can think of all kinds of interesting (and not very merciful) things that rich man deserves.  And David knew the context even better than I do.  Why?  Well, for one thing, he was a shepherd.  Given his temperament, I can only assume that he got attached to a lamb or two himself.  He knew what it cost to raise them and he could appreciate the joy the lamb brought to the family.  He was a family man too.  He could imagine only too well the grief of the poor father when his children were robbed of their playmate.  He was also a big champion of the underdog.  Who were those mighty men of his?  Drifters and outcasts, many of them.  He took them in and made something out of them.  He was always one to lift up the heads of the weak and the innocent.  The utter arrogance of the rich man must have made David fairly burn with fury.

David had gone inside of the story.  The word picture was so well crafted and so suited to his design and life experience that it drew his emotions fully into scene.  He was furious at the rich man.  There was no going back from what he was feeling, and when Nathan sprang the punch line on him, he saw his own deeds in an entirely new light.  How on earth do you continue to deny or ignore your own behavior when you have now seen it so clearly from the other side of the fence?  What do you do when you have fully condemned your own actions with your righteous reaction to the picture?

You pray a prayer like David did.

Word pictures are a powerful vehicle of truth.  When a story connects with something we know and have experienced, it can take our emotions to a place they would not go if we’d been told the concept in its own plain state.  We can relate to the picture and it sinks into a deeper place.  God is an absolute Master of word pictures.  He knows our language, our design, our experiences, our dreams, and our failures.  He knew David’s heart and what it would take to bring about a level of repentance that would become a model for humanity.

Think of the times when God has used a word picture for you.  It doesn’t have to be a rebuke like it was for David.  Many, many times God uses pictures and stories to help us see something about Himself or the way He made us.  Sometimes He uses them to instruct us.  Many of the times He has spoken to me through a picture it has been in the context of a written story.  One of my favorites is from a story called ‘The Bridge” by Jeri Massey.  There is a ballad in the story that is perfectly suited to me.  The author had no idea that it would connect with me so deeply, but God did.

When I think about this amazing facet of God’s nature, I ponder what it looks like for me.  How can I craft better word pictures for people?  What does it look like to weave together what I know about their design and experiences to engage their emotions and cause the concept to go deeper than it would have gone otherwise?

This is a topic I will continue to explore in the coming months as I look at different stories in Scripture (including this one!) and life.  We will explore some of the elements I can already see about crafting good word pictures and I look forward to discovering more.  I would be delighted for you to join me and for all of us to learn how to take this extraordinary tool to a new level in our lives.