And the king answered the people harshly, and forsaking the counsel that the old men had given him, he spoke to them... saying, "My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions."

I Kings 12:13-14, ESV

"Now LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David... So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?"

The LORD was pleased that Solomon had asked for this.

I Kings 3:7-10, ESV

This is a true tale of two kings. One was King Solomon, raised by his father to seek God and to seek wisdom. And though his father David had made a number of mistakes in his life, failing to realize that he was first and foremost a servant of God was not one of them. Because of his understanding, he raised Solomon to realize that he was to be a servant as well. For a while, Solomon did just that. When made king, Solomon requested that God give him a heart of discernment so that he could rule the people well. 

Somewhere along the line, however, he got sidetracked. He began to look to his own interests and became less of a servant of God and the people he ruled, and more of a self-centered man interested primarily in his own pleasures. And this was the example he left for his son Rehoboam. Because of this, Rehoboam never knew what it meant to be a servant, and he therefore never understood what it meant to be a man. So when the people asked him to lighten the load that his father Solomon had placed upon them in his older years, Rehoboam answered in the way of a spoiled boy, instead of a mature man. This not only split his family in later years, but it split the nation in his younger ones. And Israel, the mightiest nation on the face of the earth during the reign of Solomon became a splintered group that eventually became easy prey for her enemies.

And it was all because one king had raised his son to be a man, and one king raised his son to be a boy.

There is an important lesson for all us dads in this story. Sometimes a man gets so caught up in his work and in his hobbies that his children seem to only get whatever is left over. And leftovers are poor fare indeed in the raising of men. When a child, boy or girl, is raised to understand that the job and the fun come before God and the children, then that is likely the way that they are going to turn out. On the other hand, when a boy or girl is raised by a father who recognizes that service to God comes first, that service to family comes next, and that the job and the hobbies (important as they are) come somewhere after in the hierarchy of importance, then that is the way that they will likely believe as well.

Many men will bristle at this suggestion. After all, the family needs to be taken care of financially, and a man needs to relax - doesn't he? And while both the job and the winding down are important, we men need to learn early that this is not the purpose that God has placed us here for. He has placed us here to serve Him, and to lead our families in the same! Which means we will raise our children to be servants of God because we are "heavenward" thinking and we realize that this is what we are placed here to do.

And this heavenward thinking that makes a man worthwhile will also result in our boys becoming men someday. The earthly focus, while it might train up our boys to be a man's man in the eyes of the world, will not train them up to be real men. And a real man when given the choice between the discerning heart needed to lead the people, or a bullying heart to control the people, will always choose the route of discernment. 

David. a man after God's own heart, made his share of mistakes but still raised his son Solomon to be a man. Solomon, a man given more wisdom and wealth and power than anyone else, became a selfish and distracted man who raised his son Rehoboam to be a boy. 

How are we raising our sons and daughters? It is something all we men need to be giving serious thought to, don't you think?