King David Petraeus: Running Into Disaster

I know that I am probably the 5000th person who draws a parallel between King David and former CIA Director/Decorated US General David Petraeus. A moment of temptation becomes a millennium or more of regret. We can trace Israel's current troubles to the split in the Davidic reign when he glanced at Bathsheba and pursued her rather than averting his eyes. Adultery and murder followed, and the sword has not departed from the house.

According to news accounts, Petraeus and his biographer mistress--another Army veteran--bonded over running along the Potomac. Maybe it started innocently. The title of the book, "All In" certain has a salacious and suggestive and Freudian-like double-entendre meaning in retrospect.

I have to imagine one of the first lessons the military imparts to recruits is that letting your guard down is dangerous. When I worked with juvenile offenders--in a system that had a military-like discipline and code--a key principle of maintaining the unit was that a staff member getting comfortable was almost always destructive. I was burned more than once by ignoring the matches of misbehavior that turned into massive conflagrations that took and enormous of amount of effort and contrition to make amends for. Fear is a focuser.

Anyone who asserts that Petraeus's behavior was only a personal matter and had no bearing on his professional role and responsibilities are naive. His actions showed a profound lack of judgment and the distractions and deceptions costed time and energy to maintain, at the expense of something else. National Security. God makes no allowance between our public and private lives. We are never off the clock. We never know the costs fully, only God does, but small tears become large rips if not attended to quickly. Better, avoided altogether. If Joseph had embraced Potiphar's wife, a cougar type, he may have lost his life. Instead, he fled and wound up in jail. But, God had a plan to honor his innocence. Jail was just the setting for his eventual ascendancy. Adultery would have stopped him dead in his tracks.

James writes that "We all stumble in many ways." (James 3:2). We all have to be humble enough to see that danger almost always comes disguised as delight (ask the caught fish about the hook) ...we run to rather than away. And, then stumble, and fall. And drag many others down.  God help us.