From my experience, being a first born, you grow up with a sense of responsibility as expected from your parents, and consequently naturally towards your siblings. This, as much as it shouldn’t be the truth, happens time and time again only because of the experiences we go through growing up.
Some days you will be punished for your siblings’ mistakes, and other days you will be held accountable for yours. With time, this creates a pattern in you subconsciously either to be controlling towards your siblings (because you don’t want to be caught up in their mess), or to be obedient to your parents but not after a relationship (because you want to prove yourself to or please them).
Unfortunately, if this pattern is not broken, it manipulates itself into your behavior as an adult, whether in church, your workplace, your relationships and other aspects of life.
Progressively, this pattern begins to dictate the way you walk with authority be it at school, ministry, career, you name it; You will always think that it is not important to have a relationship with people in authority, as long as you are doing the right thing (Being Responsible and proving your work),and then also, you will somehow think everyone is your responsibility since you are expected to be the mature one, and sometimes you try to shield everyone from the consequences of their choices, or try to deal with their consequences yourself which is totally wrong and boundary-less.
Throughout my school life, I always feared to ask questions because I thought the teachers always expected me to know what to do since they have taught us everything we need to know. What’s funny is that as you grow, you also start to expect other people to know what to do, because that’s how you see life anyway. My relationship with authority has always been cultivated with the kind of attitude that expects me to know what to do, and therefore never to bother them as long as I am doing the right thing. If I can prove my work, then I am good!
Sadly, it doesn’t only affect your relationship with people, but also with God. You begin to see your service to God as proof of maturity, responsibility and your love & passion for God, and all this begins to overshadow your need for a relationship with Him. And yet a relationship with Him is all that matters. He desires that we are vulnerable with him so that he can walk with us as we are, and give us the help we genuinely need, but also use us in our uniqueness.
The bible clearly says that We love him, because he first loved us. 1John 4:19 KJV. This, for me, was the turning point because it helped me realize my mistakes and deceptions. And this is what I’ve learned;
- God is not impressed by how much we love him. He is rather impressed by how much we receive His love. Our ability to love him is as a result of His love for us, and our understanding and reception of that reality. This helped me, not only to consider my ways with God, but also with my parents, people in authority, and friends. To learn to receive love! As easy as it sounds, it can cripple your walk of salvation if you have not understood it. The more you break before love, the more love edifies you. God is love, so learn to simply receive Him every day.
- It is exhausting to try to please someone who is already pleased with you. My parents didn’t need me to do anything for them to accept me as their son. That’s the devil trying to mess with my identity. And similarly before God, I am already accepted in the beloved and because of that, I am already pleasing to and loved by Him. I don’t need to do anything to be worthy of love. The death of his son on the cross for me proved my worth. That’s the place we begin from.
- To walk with people not as I expect them to be or as my mind thinks I am expected to, but as I have been loved. John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. When you have understood that love is the ultimate womb, you learn to live from the nature you are birthed out of. You live from the inside out. As you have been loved, you love; as you have been forgiven, you forgive. As God has been patient with you, you learn to be patient with people too.
Nugget: In your walk with God and with people in authority, begin from the place of their love for you. When you begin your journey from the place of God’s love for you, or your father’s or mother’s love for you, (be it spiritual or biological parents), it becomes easy to love and serve, because they are already pleased with you. All you need is to be you, and let God fulfil His purpose through you.
God loves you and he is already pleased with you. Your spiritual parents love you, and they are pleased with you. Your biological parents love you, and they are pleased with you. Stop trying to please anyone either by doing too much to prove yourself, or through false humility by distancing, disassociation and isolation.
Be the person God made you to be, walk the path, learn from your mistakes and move forward for they don’t define your identity, and find joy in being loved by the Most High. Let love win, because Love always wins; Grace always wins. whatever you have failed at is proof that you are making progress.
1 John 4:19 The Message version says We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
To be continued…
Stay Blessed.
#WiGTyT
