Monday, June 22 – Sunday, June 28

Two years. That is how long Absalom carried his sister’s disgrace before he acted on it — two years of silence so complete that Scripture says he never said a word to Amnon, good or bad. Silence is sometimes mistaken for peace. It rarely is. More often it is grief with nowhere to go, slowly hardening into a plan.

Centuries earlier, Jacob’s sons asked a question that still echoes through this story: “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?” It is the question that rises in every heart that watches a wrong go unaddressed by the one with authority to address it. When fathers do not deal with what has happened under their roof, their children eventually deal with it themselves — and rarely with wisdom or mercy.

This is not a call to anxious control over every outcome in your children’s lives. It is a call to courage. What are you permitting by your inaction? What conversation have you postponed because it was easier not to have it? What has gone unspoken in your home that is quietly shaping how your children understand justice, forgiveness, and what a father is supposed to do when his children are wounded?

David’s silence did not prevent a tragedy. It scheduled one. Let that be a sober mercy to you today — not to frighten you into managing what only God can manage, but to free you to do what only you can do: address it, deal with it, speak it into the light now, while there is still time for grace to do its slow work.