r-e-s-p-e-c-t

This week has left me experiencing my own cave of Adullam. So much I believe, has been in my own mind, but when it seems all physical influences of leadership are arrayed either against a body, or have not declared a situation of being "for" a person, or by circumstances are no longer in place, you tend to feel on the run from everyone. I suppose it is human nature to need someone in authority to be validating our decisions, direction in life, ideas, leading of the Spirit, all those things. For a woman it can be doubly hard, because according to scripture and by nature we are continually under men. I don't believe this is a bad thing, but I sure don't understand the way you guys think sometimes. And when I receive validation and agreement, I feel equally lifted because we oftentimes do think so differently.

I'm still smarting from a few harsh words that were not meant to be that, a few really insensitive attitudes that were also not meant to be that, and I ran out of the strength and patience to be positive and understanding. David's example in treating a mad (insane) and mad (furiously jealous) king and father-in-law is so remarkable I find myself always wanting in the way I view and treat authority figures if I feel I'm in the right. Or have been wronged. He refused, at the peril of his own life, to lay a hand against God's anointed. More than once I've been tempted to lay a hand, a foot, verbal insults and barbs, sarcasm, backtalk...oh, yeah. What patience he had, and what respect. I have to remember that.

After a very difficult discussion about God's leading and future planning with my husband, in which I was tempted to do all of the above, or give up like a spoiled child, I got a phone call. Another man in leadership, someone who is a total type D and not given to gentle behavior, called to say I'd been on his mind, and did I know how much what I do is appreciated and how much his ministry interest felt I was called to be a part-an important and needed part. It's amazing how one or two sentences can change the world in a moment. I should not have needed that validation to go on, and in truth, I didn't. But it was like life-giving water to me at that particular second. It was that because what he shared was true. It was not insincere backscratching. We need to be seeking God's leading for each other because we are members of one body, and we need to respect authority. That respect will flow down if we first raise it up.