Sept 23rd, 2020: Power is Like Soap...

All You Need To Know About the 10 Percent Brain Myth, in 60 Seconds | WIRED

Power is a critical aspect of human interaction and organizations. We don't have to search very hard to see the display of various expressions of it.  We see that politics, business, faith-based bodies, family interaction, and personal relationships. Power can appropriate, healthy, and encouraging. However, it can also be destructive and abusive. How we exercise power depends on how we understand ourselves and who God is. We should also be more discerning about how we manage our relationships with others in life.

If a leader tells his people that they need to do what he told them because of his position over them, it is an abusive use of his authority. Positional power is power at its weakest form, and it is something a leader has to earn. A leader tends to use that approach toward power and authority when he (she) feels that he (she) can no longer reason with his (her) people. Something has gone seriously wrong in that relationship. Suddenly being defensive and reactive towards what they hear takes over the interaction. My way or the highway is not all that helpful in building trust and a healthy community.

Faith leaders need to be aware of this temptation. Sometimes we allow temporary popularity to cloud our head and discernment. We need to be free from the concern of the self in our commitment to lead our flock. I have seen pastors who are telling their sheep about how hard they have been working as a form of manipulation to shut down the disagreement. I have been to some pastors meetings when they don't talk much about their people with compassion and care.

When we use power negatively, it might indicate that our prayer life is pathetic. We never have the chance to see the real power of God
at work because we have not asked. We rely too much on the external feedback instead of the internal discernment. Learn to take ourselves away from the center of any human interaction is not a bad idea to deal with the temptation we face in our interactions with others.

Ezekiel 34: 4

"The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them." 

PS: Here is the complete heading for this blog: The More We Use The Less We Have Left

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