Nature abhors a vacuum.  I have seen it time and again.  That is why God invented leadership, because Godly leadership fills that vacuum with goodness – IF it is good leadership.  Not all leadership is Godly.  After nearly 2 decades working as an assistant principal in a large suburban school district in North Texas, I have seen the results of poor or no leadership in the lives of children.  I have dealt with children whose moms got involved with a man who was a poor leader and raped her children, while she turned her head.  I have seen dads turn their head while while the mom is on drugs and do nothing to help the family other than to immerse himself into his job to cover his pain and provide an excuse not to have to be home.  I have seen parents watch their daughters get involved in abusive relationships and do nothing to rescue their daughter.  I have seen parents get so involved in drugs that they spend ALL of their money getting high, and leave nothing for the kids for food, and let their kids’ teeth begin to rot out (thank God for my friend the Christian dentist who fixed their teeth free of charge!). Yes, nature abhors a vacuum.  And when it finds a vacuum, nature fills that vacuum with whatever the world will offer at the time.  Have you seen what the world has to offer?  I just named a small part of the list above.  Ironically, just today details emerged about the young man arrensted in Tampa who was going to try to blow up his school on the fist day of classes.  What is interesting is that when police arrived at the house to search the young man’s house and found all they were looking for, they “also found a marijuana growing operation” in the same house.  How does something like that happen without a parent knwoing about it?  Exactly – it would seem the parent knew.  Leadership.  The Bible tells us plainly in James 4:4, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”  That is partly because there is not much goodness in the world, and that is because man, by his own volition, put the world under the control of the evil one.  So what does this have to do with families?  Everything!

King David was a dad.  He as a dad like his own dad.  If you read my post from yesterday, you know that hios dad was not necessarily the best dad!  That is how it works.  Dads will be dad like their own dads.  Moms will be moms like their own moms – good, bad or indifferent!  Our job is to turn our parenting over to Jesus to let Him transform it.  David did not get that.  If you remember the story about Bathsheba, David started off that whole year on the wrong foot.  David (the nation’s LEADER) should NEVER have taken himself out of the role of leader when times were getting tough.

1 Samuel 11:1-2, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David…remained at Jerusalem.  2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful…”

It only goes downhill from there.  David abdicated his leadership.  He took a back seat, and let nature have its way.  Good leaders never let nature have its way.  Because David let nature have its way, the nation was never the same and neither was his family.  He has the affair with the woman who was named Bathsheba, he has her husband killed and pretends for over a year that it never happened until God sends a prophet to deal with his lack of leadership (and lack of communication!).    As time goes on, one of David’s sons (Amnon) rapes his sister, and pretends like nothing happened (kinda like David did with Bathsheba!), and David, again, does nothing to address the issue for years.  Finally, David’s other son (Absalom)  takes matters into his own hands and kills the other son who did the raping.  Time goes on, and because of Absalom’s anger against his dad, he tried to overthrow his dad’s rule.  While David is on the run, he hears that Absalom is acting so immorally, that he has sex with all of David’s wives on the roof of his house in front of everybody, and when Absalom is finally killed, David weeps bitterly: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (1 Samuel 18:33).

Godly leadership.  We all need it.  It is not always easy.  Godly leadership makes a family strong, and healthy.  Godly leadership keeps the enemy at bay.  Take a break for a minute, and nature will fill that void with all sorts of “stuff.”  Take a lesson from King David.  Peter wrote about leadership in the new testament as well:

1 Peter 5:1-5

So I exhort the elders [leaders] among you, as a fellow elder [leader] and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd [lead] the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders [leaders].  Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”