Rules without Relationship

This weekend I heard a message that was inspiring from multiple standpoints. The pastor spoke about the story of Joseph, and how he won favor with his father. He had won favor to the point that his siblings wanted him done away with. What I thought was really cool about the message was the fact that the father supported the dreams of Joseph, and that he empowered him in the process. The truth is that we often times do not have empowering fathers in our lives, and we often times do not have church "fathers" to empower us either.

In light of fathers day, I thought this was a very powerful message for fathers. Are you empowering your children? Are you letting them know that their dreams are important? Are you helping enable those dreams? As a Christian leader, I have to ask myself am I doing that for those that do not have a Christian parent to do that? I can say that I try to do that, but I am not always the best at it.

Having been in the church for a few years now, I can say that I have met more discouragement than encouragement from pastors and respected leaders. The issue was that I had no relationship with them. So to me, I just disregarded them and moved on, and at times I was tempted into rebellion. I felt, "how dare they tell me this when they do not even know who I am?" This is what leads to the next part of the post.

Rules without Relationship= Rebellion. This goes for any sort of circumstance. Whether it is a ruler, a boss, a parent, or a mentor, if the person does not have an interest in those they are over, rebellion is bound to ensue. This is why strict parents lose the respect of their children at times. The kids see the rule book but they do not see the love or investment in their lives. They learn to fear the parents wrath or avoid their judgment, but they never love them because their is no connection.

One of the best bosses that I had in the Navy was a women who was very cantankerous. However, at the end of the day, we looked out for one another so I did not mind the fact that she was a bit angry at times. We usually laughed it off shortly after. But when I knew that I was going to get yelled at no matter what and that they really did not care about me as a person, I was either going to shut down or rebel. I usually did both.

I am never quite sure if Joseph's brothers were supported by their father, but it seemed that the creativity that they had went towards getting rid of Joseph. I think that the important thing to remember though is that Joseph dared to dream and dared to share things with his father. This is because he had a relationship with him and felt comfortable with sharing those dreams with him. This is the same way with God, our fathers, and our church fathers. If we never get close enough to them to share with them what we feel or what we hope to do, we will always fear their judgment or rebel against them.

So today, I hope that you feel as inspired as I did to want to empower those that are in our care. I also hope that if you do not have a father that you can be relational with, that you can be bold enough to step out and dream without fear of rejection and failure. Always remember, the rules that God has are their to keep you safe, not to be abusive. He gave you those dreams for a reason, but have you learned to believe in yourself? I hope you would, he gave you those dreams because he believes in you!