Families under siege (Part One)

Families under siege: A look at shattered relationships in 2 Samuel 13 verses 1-39

INTRODUCTION

‘I’VE NEVER SEEN A SUCCESSFUL RELATIONSHIP’

A female colleague at university confessed to my admittedly startled face. Shocking, isn’t it, that a young Christian woman (I use the term nominally) can say without jest that relationships even in God’s house, amongst God’s children are just as dysfunctional as anyone else’s.

The Christian family of our age is beset with numerous challenges and issues with absentee fathers, irresponsible mothers and delinquent children fast becoming the norm. Back in the day, it used to be just the odd family or two in the neighborhood with overblown (or secret) domestic issues. Now however, family troubles abound left, right and center.

The Baptist Chapel Youth do not believe that we can solve all the problems militating against today’s families; only God can. But like rebuilding a torn down wall, where every brick plays its part in replacing what was lost, we believe the words which follow will draw us towards a path of greater responsibility. That is our earnest and sincere prayer.

The Baptist Chapel Youth Fellowship

Barnawa, Kaduna

January 2012

ONE

If there was one event that dominated 2011, especially amongst the young people around me, it was weddings. Between October and December, I had the privilege of attending wedding ceremonies for dear friends and family. As is often the case, I travelled in the midst of fellow church members. Talk predictably drifted to marriages, an apt and highly relevant topic. But the stories were far from the happily ever after tales I had often (naively?) associated with people in love. They were shocking to say the least, chronicling accounts of heartbreak, infidelity, abuse, assault and battery, slander and grievous bodily harm. All too often, what starts out as a wonderful relationship of love and sacrifice terminates as a war between spouses where bitterness and hate seemingly reign supreme. In fact, it is often said that we think so much about the wedding ceremony than about the life of marriage that follows.

A lot of our problems occur because our relationships are totally out of sync with God’s expectations. Having made the choice to go our own way, can we really be surprised when things spiral into disaster? Scripture is full of the accounts of mistakes and errors, not just of the wicked and immoral, but also of saints and heroes like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samson, and especially David. Ah! David; the man after God’s heart and one of the principal actors in our case study. Join us as we explore the cast and characters of a family tragedy.