2 Samuel 13:6-11: a reflection

6So Amnon lay down and faked being sick. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make me a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand.” 7Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, “Go now to your brother Amnon’s house, and prepare food for him.” 8So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house; and he was lying down. She took dough, kneaded it, made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes. 9She took the pan and poured them out before him, but he refused to eat. Amnon said, “Have all men leave me.” Then every man went out from him. 10Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the room, that I may eat from your hand.” Tamar took the cakes which she had made, and brought them into the room to Amnon her brother. 11When she had brought them near to him to eat, he took hold of her and said to her, “Come, lie with me, my sister!”

This passage records the beginning of a grievous sin. Amnon, one of David's sons, is consumed with desire for his half-sister Tamar. He pretends to be ill, contrives to get her alone, and then, when she has come to care for him, seizes her against her will. The account is painful, and it exposes something important: Amnon called what he felt love, but it was not love; it was selfish desire that would use and harm another for its own gratification.

Notice the corruption at the heart of this account: a selfish desire masquerading as love. Amnon's feeling was called love, but true love seeks the good of the other, while Amnon sought only his own gratification, and was willing to harm Tamar to get it. What he called love was in fact its opposite, a desire that used another person as a means to his own satisfaction, with no regard for her good. And indeed, once his desire was gratified, what he had called love turned quickly to contempt.

That painful account exposes a distinction we must not lose. Selfish desire can disguise itself as love, using the language of love while seeking only its own gratification, willing to use and harm others to get what it wants. But true love is the opposite: it seeks the good of the other, not the satisfaction of the self. Examine whether what you call love, in any relationship, truly seeks the good of the other, or your own gratification. Do not let selfish desire disguise itself as love in your own heart. True love gives itself for the good of the other; the desire that uses others for its own satisfaction, however it dresses itself up, is not love at all. Seek the love that seeks another's good, not the desire that seeks only its own.

Lord, this painful passage records the beginning of a grievous sin, and it exposes a corruption I must not miss: that Amnon called what he felt love, but it was selfish desire that would use and harm another for its own gratification, with no regard for her good. Help me hold onto the distinction it teaches. Selfish desire can disguise itself as love, using the language of love while seeking only its own satisfaction, willing to use and harm others to get what it wants. But true love is the opposite: it seeks the good of the other, not the satisfaction of the self. Help me examine whether what I call love, in any relationship, truly seeks the good of the other, or my own gratification. Do not let selfish desire disguise itself as love in my own heart. True love gives itself for the good of the other; help me seek that love, and not the desire that seeks only its own, however it dresses itself up. Purify my loves, Lord, that they may truly seek the good of others.