Let's start our examination with the commander himself. One of the most significant areas of conflict in priorities occurs when a person succeeds in a position of command. This marks a milestone in an individual's career that provides an opportunity to set himself apart from many other persons who are competing in promotion and other positions of greater responsibility.
The Christian commander has an additional dimension of performance--to bring glory to God and to insure that the brotherhood of Christian officers is encouraged by his performance. These two things need to be borne in mind. Sometimes we say, "Well, God's going to take care of these things." We need to remember that our performance as a Christian is going to be judged. It is going to be the standard by which those who precede us, and those who come in the future, are judged. We can make it much easier on our successors if we do well.
The pressure is
on, and it takes careful reordering of priorities to insure that
we accomplish the goals we establish for ourselves. The careful
Christian commander begins by contemplating all of the tasks to
be performed and their priorities. Undoubtedly, there is
some consternation as you see the list of tasks will take up far
more time than you've got. So you begin a dialogue with yourself
to determine what can be cut -- What's really important? Where
does that brutal massacre take place in terms of priorities?
Which responsibilities can I set aside as ones that are not going
to significantly enhance my performance as a commander?
Unfortunately that latter category is all too often the one the family falls into. A common rationalization states: "In order for me to provide adequately for my family in the future, they are going to have to understand that this command opportunity must be successfully executed. Therefore, they will have to accept some changes and realize that I'll make it up to them when the tour is complete." If that doesn't sound familiar to you who have been in command, it sounds very familiar to me--because I've said those words! Unfortunately, as I will point out a little later, I didn't say them to the right people.
The phenomenon of family neglect in command positions is not new. There seems to be a period of time in the history of the nation Israel when this was normal practice. Some of the great men of Scripture, men who were hand-picked by God to fill positions of national leadership, were guilty of family neglect. Not only their families, but the whole nation, suffered the results of their neglect.
Turn first to 1 Samuel, Chapter 2. I will pick up the story of one of the great priests, a man whose name we are familiar with--Eli. This was the period of the judges in Israel's history. A variety of different people, form different tribes, were led to positions of leadership by the Lord. Some were priests, some were not. Eli was not only the high priest, but also the principal judge of the nation Israel.
Tragically, Eli's sons were wicked men who did not honor the Lord. They abused the offerings and sacrifices that the people brought to them, taking the best portions for their own wealth and pleasure. Eli was weak and ineffectual in rebuking them. God accused Eli of honoring his sons more than his Lord. He rejected the line of Eli as future priests, and He told Eli that his sons would both die on the same day. (1 Samuel 2:12-36)
The rest of the chapters in Samuel show how these prophecies took place. In a war with the Philistines, Phineas and Hophne were killed. The family received an everlasting curse, and all the household of Eli became an anathema to the nation of Israel. The next person in line; the great prophet Samuel, was instrumental in victories over the Philistines. But he seems not to have learned the lesson from his predecessor and mentor, Eli. Reading Chapter 8 of First Samuel,
When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him. "You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have." 1 Samuel 8:1-5 (NIV)
One of my favorite persons in the Old Testament is Gideon. Yet we see in Gideon a tragic life. In Judges, Chapter 8 we see him as a man of great faith, ultimately a man who was a great warrior. He came a long distance in his own spiritual life. Yet he was to lead Israel into great sin, because of his family.
The Israelites said to Gideon, "Rule over us--you, your son and your grandson--because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian." But Gideon told them, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you." And he said, "I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder." (Judges 8:22-24a. NIV)
Of course they did. He made of them an Ephod--a priestly vest. It became an object of worship to the Jewish people. Let us read more of Gideon's latter days.
Jerub-Baal (which is another name for Gideon) went back home to live. He had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives. His concubine, who lived in Shechem, also bore him a son, whom he named Abimelech. Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age and he was buried in the tomb of this father Joash in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side. They also failed to show gratitude to the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) for all the good things he did for them. Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to his mother's brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother's clan. "Ask all the citizens of Shechem which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Ball's sons rule over you, or just one man? Remember I'm your flesh and blood." (Judges 8:29-35; 9:1-5, NIV)
As the account goes on, Abimelech kills all but one of the
sons of Gideon, takes over the country and turns them back to
worship of the idol Baal. This leads to civil war. It is a bloody
three- or four-year period in Israel's history. 
I am a member of my present congregation in Washington, D.C. for several reasons. One of the principal reasons is our pastor's children. I know four of the five well. I knew them when they were teenagers. I've watched them grow up. I've seen one of them get married. I've had them in my Sunday School class. These are fine, upstanding young men and women. They are all responsible citizens. One is a nurse, one's a pastor, one's a lawyer, one's a social worker and the oldest one (the one we don't know) is the mother of three fine children, married to a pastor in Tennessee. Our pastor has managed his congregation well in every aspect. In addition, he has a family that is obedient and that glorifies the Lord. That is the quality of leadership that truly honors God.
Webster's Dictionary defines neglect as follows: "to pass over without giving due attention." I think this is the whole idea -- to pass over something, to act as though it isn't there. This is typified by the people portrayed in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In these seven words of Webster is the key to the solution of not neglecting your family when in command.
Let's examine some of the scriptural principles that come from the events we examined. Common to all of these incidents is the fact that the leader perceived himself to be in a crisis situation. Each time, he took action in a situation where the government was changing. Eli was getting old. Samuel was about to take over, and Eli knew it, realizing that his sons wouldn't carry on. The Philistines were giving the nation of Israel trouble in Eli's time. Each of these men were in a crisis situation of some kind.
The father's life, in most instances, was a poor example for the son to follow. Saul set a poor example for his son to follow. Gideon married many wives, had seventy sons and then had Abimelech by a prostitute who didn't live with the rest of the family.
It's obvious that these fathers paid little attention to their youngsters. As we read in the account of Eli, "it came to Eli that his sons were sleeping with the temple keepers." He wasn't close enough to the functioning of his family to know what was going on! In David's case, his sons were real rascals. One caused the overthrow of the government. Again David did not know what was going on in his family.
Next is a significant point. It's one that as men we need be very careful about. There seems to be little more than sexual attention paid to the women in the lives of the men we read about. We ought to be careful in the perceptions we as men give to our wives. You have heard the jokes, of course, that go through the sea service when you've been off on a six month deployment; or that go through the squadron, or whatever unit you happen to be in. What is our attitude toward our wives when we come back from deployment? Are we interested in hearing the things that have been important to her during that period of time? It appears, as you look at this -- particularly in the life of Gideon -- that the whole situation was one of selfish, fleshly, sexual gratification rather than one in which the person was interested in the wife's life.
Last of all, I think we see from these accounts that discipline was ineffectual. It occurred too late in the son's life to cause positive change. Eli tried to discipline his two sons; they totally ignored him. David called Solomon aside, told him what his problems would be, and Solomon ignored him. Through all of these accounts, the discipline didn't take with the sons, when the fathers finally decided something needed to be done. It wasn't a consistent kind of discipline. Apparently it had not been applied throughout the child's life.
One of the books that has had a tremendous influence on my life, is a book by Bruce Larson, called, Living on the Growing Edge. I think it is a significant book because of one concept. Bruce Larson explains that each one of us is unique. At any given time in our life the direction of our growth is different from everyone else's. The individual who is responsible for another person must attempt to locate that growing edge and cultivate it. We may find that we really want to develop a prayer life in one of our children, for example. But we may find that the child is experiencing a greater understanding of discipline, or of fellowship, or maybe something as mundane as a boy/girl relationship.
At this point, if the child is curious
about boy/girl relationships, we will probably be ineffective if
we keep on trying to develop a deeper prayer life for the child.
The opportunity exists, however, to help the child learn God's
perspective on what he or she is really interested in.
The first requirement for the head of a household is that we learn a skill we all need very much. We need to use our ears. If I have done one thing too much, and one thing too little, it is that I have issued too many orders and listened too little to the responses to those orders. It is easy, as the commander of a ship, to say, "Left full rudder," and expect a smart, "Aye, Aye." I became conditioned to that kind of response. I would come home and snap my fingers and expect that to happen. The more important thing, however, is to listen for what is not said, or to listen to what is said and try to figure out what really happened. Silence is expressive. At some point, however, the hurt, the neglect (because I haven't heard what's been said or not been said) finally cries out.
"Won't you ever learn to pick up your socks?" she said.
Well, that's not a big thing. My wife knows how to pick up socks. With two males and three females around the house, she's accustomed to doing this. So my immediate response was, "Oh, yeah, Honey, I will pick up the socks." But what I've really done is that I've not listened; I've not heard that somewhere there is another problem. This just reflects a pressure break. Somewhere there is a lot of pressure that's being built up that I haven't really looked for.
As I've thought about it, and as I shared this with Carol, I've come to a conclusion on the real problem. The wife and the family recognize our responsibilities as commanders. My wife know for example, when I took over my command, that because I was dealing with Reservists I would have to work weekends and evenings. She appreciated that, and she knew there would be things I would miss and things I would not share. She was willing to make that sacrifice. The children were willing to make that sacrifice too. They knew that sometimes I would not be able to do certain things. The real problem was that I never said, "Thank-you for the sacrifice."
The second thing was that I never let them share the burden of my command. They wanted to. When I left to command, it was nearly two years before I really began to appreciate that I had shouldered those responsibilities alone. I was actually saying to my family, "I don't trust you enough to tell you where my problems are. I don't feel that you are concerned enough about me; you don't love me."
I began to think about the way I had behaved. Carol would ask how my day had been. My response was to throw the briefcase in the corner, reach for the coffee pot and say "You know, one of those rough days." I didn't realize that she was saying "Tell me! Share with me! I want to pray for you!" I'd come home some days hopping mad, and take it out on the lawnmower -- instead of taking five minutes and saying, "Honey, I really wish you would pray for me. The bosses are on my case about a problem and I really don't know how to handle it." Instead I go to bed with it. I'd wake up in the morning grouchy, because I didn't know how to solve it. Who would I take it out on? The family. As a result, I got it taken back out on me. We had a pretty rocky time, simply because we didn't share with each other the high point of our experiences.
Carol was quick to realize that I had looked forward for a long time to having that command. Yet I was excluding her from the opportunity of being a part of it, and she resented it. What I am saying is that, in her mind, this is what she perceived. I had excluded her from the opportunity to share something that was really meaningful to both of us.
The third point relates to the separations that come from being commanders, or keeping operational commitments. They should not be responsible for breaking up the family. As a matter of fact, in many instances they can do a great deal more to settle a family down than we give them credit for. The big problem with the separations, as I have observed in the Navy and Marine Corps families, is that we set up a separate chain of command. Momma takes you down to a ship and you set sail for West or East. The wife goes home. Of course, that's the time when everything that is powered by electricity or gasoline goes on the blink. They all become inoperative as soon as the ship goes hull down over the horizon, or when the company heads for the field. The women find that the checkbook doesn't balance. Johnny and Sara, because of their feeling of having lost a father and being upset over a new chain of command, start doing poorly in school. The wife says "Good grief, what did I get myself into."
The wife is forced to set up an entirely new chain of command. Just about the time she has everything working -- knows where all the checks are, has everything functioning properly and knows where everything is. Just when the kids are willing to say, "Yes, Mom. No, Mom." who comes home with a sea bag full of dirty clothes and wants to take over the responsibilities again? And too often shows no concern for what's been happening to Mom.
The same crises begin all over. The kids are upset; they don't know who to listen to. I finally got to the point of saying, the first three weeks I was home:
"What did Mom say?"
"Well, she said, 'No.'"
"Right on."
"Well, Dad?"
"Mom said no. I say no."
It took me three deployments before I
figured out this procedure. I would come back, and I wanted to be
king pin. I didn't want the responsibility of working my way into
the chain of command. I wanted it because of the gold band on my
left ring finger, because everything had my name on it; I owned
it. Everyone was going to march to my tune. And never, never once
did I sit down with Carol and say, "Where are we? How's the
family growing? What direction are we looking at? What are the
kids' needs? What do we need to talk about? What do we need to do
to make an orderly change of command?" It didn't work, and
of course, the leadership went to pot for a period of time --
until we reestablished order.
Now, if we did that in our professional communities; if we set up a chain of command like that, what kind of reputation would we have? You could kiss the next promotion, or the next command opportunity, good-bye. But we do it in our families, we do it in our principal or permanent command -- our household. How many of us, when we go off on TAD/TDY or on leave, set up a well organized situation? I'm a Division Director on the Chief of Naval Operations staff, and I have what I consider some reasonable responsibilities. I was gone all last week, and on Saturday I wrote up on the blackboard some things I wanted carried out. I left the phone number where I could be reached. We set up our procedures; we brief our executive officers; we tell them what our objectives and goals are, we get the whole thing laid on, and then we go off and do our job. While we are gone, we periodically check back on the progress. But I didn't do that with my family. I didn't set up the same sort of situation where I'd left some things for Carol and the kids to carry out. I didn't know how she would be supported in these areas. I just took off with the idea in my mind, "she's a pretty sharp gal, she can handle it."
[Continued in Not Neglecting Family in the Midst of Military Command (Part 2).]
