“Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this, the wrath of the Lord is on you.” — 2 Chronicles 19:2 (NIV)
Jehoshaphat was one of the finest kings Judah ever produced. He sought the Lord in the early years of his reign with genuine hunger. He sent teachers throughout Judah to instruct the people in the law of God. He established justice systems that were genuinely impartial and God-honouring. He prayed one of the most beautiful and honest prayers of corporate intercession in the Old Testament. And he formed a marriage alliance between his son and the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel.
That alliance, sealed through a family marriage, drew Jehoshaphat into a series of entanglements with Ahab and with the house of Ahab that cost him repeatedly. He went with Ahab to battle at Ramoth Gilead despite the clear word of the prophet Micaiah that the venture was doomed. He very nearly died on that battlefield, saved only when the enemy realised he was not Ahab and broke off their pursuit. He was confronted by the prophet Jehu when he returned and told plainly that the alliance had provoked God’s anger. And then, astonishingly, he later allied himself with Ahab’s son Ahaziah for a shipping venture. The prophet Eliezer told him the partnership would fail. The ships were wrecked.
Why did a man of Jehoshaphat’s genuine spiritual quality keep making the same relational mistake? The text does not give us a detailed psychological analysis, but the pattern suggests something about the particular vulnerability of the relationally gifted leader: the desire to be liked, to find common ground, to build bridges across divides, can, when left unguarded, slide into alliances that God has not sanctioned. Jehoshaphat had a generous spirit. Generosity is a gift. But generosity without discernment will keep finding itself in the same difficult room with the same wrong people.
Every leader has a blind spot. The quality of a leader’s self-awareness is often determined by how honest they are about where that blind spot is located. Jehoshaphat’s was relational: his inclination toward alliance, harmony, and connection became the consistent crack in an otherwise remarkable leadership record. His kingdom and his reputation survived his blind spot, just barely, but they were diminished by it in ways that a more guarded leader might have avoided.
The question is not whether you have a blind spot. You do. Every leader does. The question is whether you know where it is and whether you have people around you who are permitted to speak to it. Jehoshaphat had the prophets. They told him the truth every time. He heard them and then went back to the same patterns. The availability of honest counsel and the willingness to receive it are not the same thing.
Today, ask God to show you your relational blind spot. Where your genuine strengths, whether generosity, loyalty, the desire for harmony, or the gift of building bridges, become the door through which problematic alliances enter. And then ask whether you are hearing the Micaiahs in your life, or politely setting them aside.
Prayer
Father, show me my blind spot. The place where my genuine strength becomes my consistent vulnerability. And give me the honesty to receive what the prophets in my life are saying about it, even when what they say disrupts an alliance I have invested in. In Jesus’ name, amen.
