The Art of Leadership By Dag Heward-Mills
MANY LEADERS experience attacks on their families. The enemy can use your family to harass you. Your life can be made miserable because of your family. Your family is often an easy target for the enemy. It could be your wife, your husband or your children. Ahab’s seventy sons were all killed because of an attack on Ahab.
And he that was over the household, and he that was over the city, the elders also, and they that brought up the children, sent to Jehu, saying, We are thy servants, and will do all that thou shalt bid us; we will not make any man king: do thou that which is good in thine eyes. Then he wrote a letter the second time to them, saying, If ye be on my side, and if ye will hearken unto my voice, take ye the heads of the men your master’s sons, and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow this time. Now the king’s sons, being seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who brought them up. And it came to pass, when the letter came to them, that THEY TOOK THE KING’S SONS, AND SLEW SEVENTY PERSONS, and put their heads in baskets, and sent him them to Jezreel.
And there came a messenger, and told him, saying, they have brought the heads of the king’s sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning. And it came to pass in the morning, that he went out, and stood, and said to all the people, Ye be righteous: behold, I conspired against my master, and slew him: but who slew all these? Know now that there shall fall unto the earth nothing of the word of the LORD, which the LORD spake concerning the house of Ahab: for the LORD hath done that which he spake by his servant Elijah.
SO JEHU SLEW ALL THAT REMAINED OF THE HOUSE OF AHAB IN JEZREEL, AND ALL HIS GREAT MEN, AND HIS KINSFOLKS, AND HIS PRIESTS, UNTIL HE LEFT HIM NONE REMAINING.
2 Kings 10:5, 7-11
When Jehu was fighting against Ahab, he did not attack only Ahab. Jehu attacked Ahab’s sons, relatives, his great men and all his priests, until there was no alliance or friendship left.
Many ministers are harassed by their children who turn away from God. A zealous missionary-minded pastor told me how his heart was broken by his son who became an atheist. Another pastor’s heart was broken by his son who became a criminal and went to prison several times. He was dragged into the newspapers on several occasions because of his unruly and uncontrollable son. These attacks are spiritually orchestrated to embarrass, intimidate and silence the man of God.
A man of God told me how he fasted for forty days and received the shock of his life after the fast. He said to me, “I was so lean that my shorts were falling off my body. Then somebody walked into my house and said to me, “Your wife is dead. She died last night in an accident.” This pastor said to me, “I did not know what to do or say. I walked out into the garden and lifted up my eyes and asked a simple question, “What kind of God are you?” He was devastated. The death of his wife marked the beginning of several crises in his life.
Bomber Harris
Bomber Harris believed that massive and sustained area bombing of the friends, relatives and families in Germany would force Germany to surrender. This amounted to attacking the friends, aides and relatives of the German military. Sir Arthur Travers Harris (Bomber Harris) led a campaign to bomb German cities. He was the Air Chief Marshall during the latter part of World War II.
The bombing of these German cities was aimed at destroying as many homes and houses as possible. People had nowhere to go after the bombs destroyed their homes. People were unable to go to work in the factories to produce weapons because they had no homes. The aim was to de-house everybody in Germany. Indeed, the attack on families, friends and alliances of the German army was truly effective.
This de-housing exercise displaced the German workforce and reduced their ability to work. In this de-housing campaign, Bomber Harris bombed and flattened several cities of Germany such as Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden and Berlin.
A leader can overcome these attacks by seeing it for what it is: an attack of the enemy! Any attack of the enemy on your family will turn your attention away from the war and side-track you from your real purpose. If you are a leader, protect your family and pray for your family because they are prime targets of the enemy!
Culled from “The Art of Leadership”
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