Are you applying your leadership skills at home? (95-3)
Every human being has leadership responsibility. Sometimes the sphere of influence is as small as our personal life or our family but the same principles apply for successful leadership at every level. Read 2 Samuel 16:1-18; 18.
It is hard to find a more tragic case study in the Bible of leadership-gone-bad than the story of David’s son Absalom. For all of David’s strengths as a leader, he failed as a leader in his own home. We see no indication from what is written in the Bible, that as a father, David helped Absalom acquire a heart for God.
Absalom grew up as a child of privilege in the palace. He was charismatic, attractive, and had great natural leadership gifts. Because David did not use his leadership gifts with his family the same way he did for the nation, Absalom’s inner circle of friends became his advisors and influenced his treachery by giving him bad counsel. When godly leaders do not use their influence to shape the thinking of those closest to them, it should not surprise them when people with different values shape their thinking.
Absalom’s abuse of positional power, won through great natural talent, inflicted a lot of pain on many Israelites. His lack of respect for authority, combined with a lack of respect for God, led to chaos in the kingdom. We can only wonder what might have happened had David applied his leadership skills in his own family and shed his tears before God seeking His help to shape Absalom’s values as a boy while under his roof rather than shedding those tears at his funeral (2 Samuel 18:33).
Are you applying your positive leadership influence in your family, with your friends, in your church or just at your workplace? Wise godly leaders use their influence in every area of their life not just their work life.
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