When Your Boss Throws Spears

Leadership in the workplace is a fragile thing, at times a moving target. If you are the top dog, it is your responsibility to lead your people with the proper motives, understanding the people in your employ need you to act with propriety and the understanding of responsibility. You are responsible for your actions and the treatment of your managers and employees. You are responsible for how they view their workplace; whether you have direct contact with everyone or just your managers.

Are you a boss that throws spears at your managers or employees? Does your boss throw spears at you? What do I mean by that? You can read for yourself:

1 Samuel 18:9-11 (NIV)

9 And from that time on Saul kept a close eye on David.

10 The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand 11 and he hurled it, saying to himself, “I’ll pin David to the wall.” But David eluded him twice.

Being the boss and throwing spears at your employees will create a business full of people who distrust and despise your leadership. Being an employee at a business where the boss throws spears is tremendously tiring and unnerving, making it so much more difficult to want to be at work and want to perform well.

Which brings me to the parallel. King Saul threw his spears at David because he was insecure and distrusting. Certain bosses can be insecure because of their upbringing, and controlling because of their insecurities. As a controlling boss you can choose make the changes needed to allow your employees the latitude to do their jobs without your constant intervention. As a manager or employee under such controlling leadership we must take our cue from David in this story.

David was hired on in Saul's house as one whom Saul liked, one who was enjoyed by the king because the atmosphere he brought with him was soothing and helpful. Our employ under such leadership that throws occasional spears is difficult at best; but keeping our attitudes in check and realizing it is up to us to avoid being hit yet coming back day after day because it is our duty, and it is how we continue our existence.

The attitude David brought to Saul's house is the attitude we are to bring to our workplace, we are the atmosphere builders on our jobs. God uses us to change the atmosphere by our attitude, if we will only bring the proper attitude to work with us. No its neither comfortable nor enjoyable having the occasional spear thrown at us; but as it turns out it is part of our burden to bare. So why you ask do I write this in FathersBest?

Our workplace issues have the tendency to be brought home with us on a daily basis; and it is important for us to do our very best to prevent the occasional spear that's thrown in our direction from dictating the atmosphere we allow into our home. We must do our best to rally our spirit before we get home, and having the attitude that our job is where we take on the problems of provision for our families. But our home is where we are to create the atmosphere for God to work. Dodging the spears of our boss and picking up our harps to play anyway is most difficult, but it is how we manage our lives to stay in control of them. If we tend to allow the boss to dictate our own personal attitudes we will belong to the same unhappy club the boss belongs to. Preventing the entrance of our difficult and consuming workplace attitudes into our homes is a thing of life preserving character.

David's attitude made him into the man whom God Himself called "a man after my own heart". Why? Because David allowed the spears thrown at him to produce character in him. We never read about David picking up the spear and throwing it back at Saul; but we do read that up until he saw the need to run away to preserve his life, David continued to play his lyre and control the atmosphere of Saul's home because he played. Our harp playing, atmosphere-controlling ways at work may someday be ultimately rejected, but it is what will preserve both our lives and the life of the company we work for or lead.

Romans 5:3-5 (NIV)

3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Putting this into perspective, as fathers let us understand our duty to be men of character, bringing hope into our workplace; hope for ourselves, hope for our fellow employees, hope for the success of the company we work for. As the employer, let your character produce hope in your company and each and every one of your employees. As fathers, let the character produced from our perseverance at work produce hope in our homes; allowing our character to be the catalyst for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to be in our home and family life.

Touched By an Angel

Today I want to take a different tack on my blog as we begin our Christmas season in earnest. Finishing touches of decorating, planning for family, parties and even schedules surrounding work and the holidays. It’s a busy time in most of our lives.

I want to take time out with this writing to say how difficult being a father, no being a parent can be. I love my community of believers; pastor and friends who saw my family through some very difficult times. In my home however, we have had an additional partner, an angel that helped us tremendously. Our angel, Rhonda Reardon, helped us take on one of the most difficult projects of our lives as parents, our son. As I have alluded to many times in my writing, our son was born with a congenital heart defect which was difficult enough, yet as he grew older ADD and learning difficulties would debilitate him almost as much as the years of physical infirmity; because by now he was old enough to have his psyche harmed by these difficulties. Homework for him was almost impossible, friends who would wound him with teasing, on and on these difficulties mounted up.

Yet a decision we made to include our angel in raising our son was one of our best decisions for his life and ours. Rhonda spent countless hours sitting with, praying for guiding and mentoring Phillip; teaching him what we could not. Using her skills to teach our son how to make it through homework and lessons from school and teaching him how to stick to something, forcing him to persevere. If you ask Phillip what one person aside from his parents influenced his youth, I’m pretty confident Rhonda’s name would be at the top of his list. She is a friend like no other to our family as a whole.

The reason I want to bring her up in this blog is because I found out this week that her peers on our city council have voted her in as Mayor Pro tem. Which shows what quality of person she is and proves that our decision to utilize her gifts in our family was so very important. I want to encourage you as a father not to try going it alone. As a father, it is most important to be the mentor, guide and imparter of God’s directions in your child; but I want to encourage you to not be too proud to include an available angel as well in the tough times of your life.

I’m eternally grateful to God in this season for the beautiful angel He placed in our lives, and if you are struggling with a particular area in your child’s life, ask God to send you an angel as He did us and decide right now you can’t go it alone. It is a promise that our Father will keep. In this season of angels, ask Him for your own.

Hebrews 1:14

Therefore, angels are only servants--spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation.

Time to Wait

As a Christian father, the most important job we have is to train our children in the most important part of the Christian life, their relationship with God. There is only one way to grow close with our Father, by spending time in close contact with Him. In a discussion with His followers in Luke 17 Jesus tells a parable about one of His more frequent topics of conversation, a man of plenty verses a man of servitude.

Luke 17:7-10

7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

At first glance, I'm sure you are wondering how do these verses speak about our relationship with God? To help grasp this, focus on the word "wait" and the words spoken by the owner of the farm and the one he is speaking to. The word wait in the Greek is diakoneo; meaning to be an attendant to, wait on or serve. The farm owner is demanding that his servant-farmhand wait on him, before he take care of his own needs. To the mind of today’s society, which has been without slaves or indentured servants for more than a century, we have little idea of what it would be like to have little or no rights of our own.

It is time we “sons” of God recognize that not only do we have a personal and loving relationship with our Farm Owner; we have a requisite obligation to come into His divine presence to serve Him. We are to make it our requirement to “wait” on the Lord like this farm owner/master who is asking his servant after a long day of work on his fields to wait on him hand and foot until he is satisfied. We are to make serving our Father/Farm Owner our duty, prior to making time for ourselves. This is the problem with today’s “religion”, we think a demanding God is not the kind of Deity we are comfortable with.

Waiting on God is not what we have been taught throughout our Christian lives. The prophet Isaiah was completely right when he told Israel:

Isaiah 40:29-31

29 He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, 31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

We have used this verse in a context of waiting for God to do something for us all these years, myself included. Yet that is not what Isaiah was saying to his people. The people of Israel had grown tired of their fate; they had become lost in their faith in God, and they were just plain worn out. The prophet was telling them that there is but one way to become renewed, to regain their dignity, to find their power and strength; only by coming to Him to wait on him. This “wait” in Hebrew is qavah; which means to bind together by twisting. The only way for us to come into the Father’s presence and be renewed, refreshed, revived and strengthened; is to wrap ourselves in Him, to become intertwined with Him.

It is IN Him that we gain our strength, through waiting on him as the foremost part of our day, whether it is before you go out to the fields or after you come home from a long day, our time with the Father/Farm Owner is our specific duty, our responsibility and obligation to serve Him first, prioritize our lives with His benefit in mind. This is what we fathers should be doing, making sure that our children are watching us making our service to God a priority. We will be strengthened, yes; but we will be exemplifying to our children what we consider the priority of our life. No matter what we do in our day, we still have the requirement to come into His presence to serve him with our time and attention. Are we waiting on God as our genie in a bottle to answer our prayers or are we waiting on our Master, giving Him the time He needs as our duty to serve?

How Can a Huge Failure Be Rectified?

      My son called me the other night to talk with me about the Penn State Football tragedy. If you have been away to the moon for the past week you may not know that one of their ex-football coaches has been indicted on dozens of counts of molestation of minors. I rarely pay much attention to the news, so my son filled me in on the newest dirt surrounding Joe Paterno and the Penn State football (non)-program.

It is impossible for me to understand how men are capable of this kind of perversion, not only the crime against a child but a crime against manhood. This father who had distanced himself so far away from fathering, to the act killing the souls of dozens of boys by his molestation deserves his own death, even as our Savior's own words condemn:

Matthew 18:6-8

⁶ “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. ⁷ Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!

Although this man deserves death for what he has done, all of the responsibility for his HUGE display of complete immorality belongs to the world. Jesus says here that the world bears responsibility for allowing the things that led up to this kind of amoral act to occur. Yes I will say again this failure is the result of one man's act of selfishness, but as we learned later this week that it went beyond the one man; as it turns out several men allowed themselves to overlook this unbelievable failure against mankind.

This is more than a failure this is depravity at its worst! But I have to echo my Lord's words, Woe! Woe to us, all of us, because this is what happens when men fail to do good and allow themselves one step at a time to become so skewed by the events that make up our current world. So indoctrinated by evil that surrounds us, in our lives, on the streets, in violent and perverted games played in our living rooms, watched on TV and clicked on the internet.

This is why I call upon fathers to be better than the rest, no not just better but the Best. It takes a disconnect to be the best; a disconnect from the world that causes men to stumble. Which brings me to the question asked in this post: How can such a huge failure in a man's life be made right? Only one way, humility and selfless acceptance of responsibility. This is where a father who has failed miserably can regain his stature eventually, but how difficult this is; because it goes so hard against the grain of man's pride. Most men will not be able to go this direction because it was engrained in their humanity from the beginning. Sin is where it starts and sin is where it finishes, unless; unless the man humbles himself, takes responsibility for his actions and receives the penalty, whatever that would look like, whether from society or family members. All the while remaining completely and utterly humble throughout the process.

James 4:10

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Even then commiserate with the severity of the selfish and hurtful actions, men will have a difficult time with forgiveness, but God will not.

Matthew 19:26

Jesus looked at them intently and said, "Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible." NLT

     The answer is coming before the Lord with our humility, confessing our sin to Him, and in cases where the light has been illuminated on our sin, becoming humble before those we have injured. I call upon all fathers in light if this incredibly difficult news, think about your own potential for depravity. Put everything you've got into giving life your Best effort at remaining selfless and responsible to those we love, for our actions.

He Was Way Too Busy

Today's blog is a reply to a comment on Jim Daly's Blog, Finding Home, about how baseball is more than just a sport. His take is that baseball is a way of making memories with your son. I found her response quite telling and tragic. My heart truly went out to Gigi, which is why I responded. The end is more beautiful than the story itself, because Gigi found a way to connect to her dad even though she grew up with the pain. This story is why I wrote my yet to be published book, "Putting Pearls on Pigs, Biblical Solutions to the Mediocrity of Fatherhood".

From Gigi:

I never felt much love for my dad - He was way too busy taking care of the church members and being a pastor to have time to love his own family. My siblings and I all grew up with that perspective. And it was probably 90% accurate. After my dad died, I realized he had contributed some good to my life. Baseball was one of them. I could name all the Cincinnati Reds those years we lived in Ohio. We went to several games as a family and watched a lot of tv games. I learned the sport and as a single woman I surprised many with my knowledge of baseball. Thanks, Dad.

My response:

Gigi, I can't tell you how sad it is that your father was so distant. It wasn't only you though, I know so many that were affected like you by busy fathers. The saddest part of your story is that your father and so many pastors and evangelists like him; who neglected their kids by following in the paths of biblical examples like Eli and David. Many like them hurt or ruined the spiritual lives of their kids. It is such a shame that so many were left in the wake of these well meaning, yet poorly trained fathers. They were not taught well in their colleges and seminaries. I pray that today's pastor/fathers are trained and mentored with you in mind. Your story and those of many like you need to be the catalyst for a new generation. It is just so sad that people like you grew up with such a poor view of your fathers. It's so nice that baseball helped your life, but it is still so sad that the ball field you and your dad visited together wasn't your own. Bless you.

Please see Jim Daly's article at http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/blogs/Finding_Home/2011/10/19/why-baseball-is-more-than-just-a-sport#cf

I would love for you to be a follower of this blog; please sign in today to receive notification of my posts. You can connect with me on Facebook groups at FathersBest and on Twitter at DCFathersBest.

Dad, You're Too Late

Aaron was a son of Christian parents, he became the victim of his girlfriend's abortion, the abortion of his own son. One day he sat down with his dad, an apparently religious father more concerned over the ugliness of the sin and how it makes his family look than the effect of the sin upon his child. As they sat and talked his dad was having the feeling that Aaron was possibly being promiscuous and he told him be careful not to start having sex... The young man's response was, "Dad, you're too late".

Now, Aaron looking back as he was interviewed for the Focus on the Family radio broadcast, sees how much better it would have been had his dad warned him about the dangers of youth and sex. They never had "the talk" as he was going through adolescence. He now feels that had his father approached the subject in a straight-forward way, he would have prevented his promiscuity.

So Dad, are you too late for something with your child? As you think about this, your son or daughter, something you missed, something you neglected, something you wish that you had asked their forgiveness for or just something that was unforeseen. Maybe like Aaron's father you were too busy religiously judging society to see your own son's lostness, or maybe you wish you had made a different choice between missing one of your child's important events for a business trip, causing issues of feeling rejected. Whatever the reason for your being too late, the healing is just down the hall from you or just a phone call away.

Like Aaron, who became a giant through the difficulties of his situation; used his gained maturity over the years to see his father's life-changing mistake, yet come to the place of forgiveness and acceptance. Your son too can grow from his mistakes and yours, as will you. If you have been too late, God will make all things new as you confront the your lateness in His timing.

A Military Dad Deploys and the Family Sacrifices

During our church service today we dedicated another baby to the Heavenly Father's care and oversight for her lifetime. Our congregation adds one additional dedication to the event; we dedicate the father and mother to raise the child into the Kingdom of God. To me dedicating father and mother makes so much more impact on the life of the child than the dedication of the child. This is one of my favorite events we do in a Sunday service because of what it means. Today's however was quite special; special because it was under unusual circumstances.

The father of this new baby is on his way to a third tour as a Cobra helicopter pilot in the war on terror this week. I grieved over the coming separation of a father and his three year old son, and I grieved over the young wife being left with this newborn girl. The young son and father have bonded very closely during the past year; since his last tour, a very close knit relationship of the returned father has taken place. There will be lots of tears, lots of confusion in the mind of this little boy and surely a dad with a broken heart.

This all is such a dichotomy to me though, how a father could leave his family, yet how important it is that our nation needs its great military men. The amount of courage involved by the soon to be absent father must be tremendous, and the amount of sacrifice by the father, mother and children is great! But this still leaves me sad and hurt for this family and for all the military families of our great nation.

A great big thank you, to you all. The prayers from fellow fathers will be with you; that God will give you grace and mercy and may he restore the bond that is missed by every day you were serving our nation!