Respected... to Inspire What is Expected.
Down the years from a 1967 Detroit studio where Aretha Franklin belted out the song "respect", a hollow echo sounds off the empty skyscrapers of that city and the empty temples of our lives back into the reality of today.
Respect is something that every man needs and desires more than almost anything else in this world, and yet it is the very thing that those lives that surround men, refuse to give away without great effort and coercion. People surrounding the men, hold tight to their offerings of respect, with an iron grip, demanding that, IT MUST BE EARNED! Respect is never given freely, because they believe it would be ineffective if given out to these men without payment. This premise that upon completion of some strange right of passage or level of honour, respect will be given out like a graduation certificate for exams completed and appropriate ribbons achieved, is... hogwash!
Nothing could be further from the truth!
Parents, look to circumstances, marks and social interactions to measure the respect that they give their sons. Be quiet, be gentle, be kind... why can't you be like your sister? And so these sons sensing their needs for respect, begin a life long search looking for the very thing that his parents had in abundance but measured out with a thimble, choosing rather to use the gift as a gizmo that can be used to manipulate and change the very character of their sons.
Wives too, look to their husband's provision, and forced passivity to qualify the offer to respect them. This thinking sadly places them where they find, at the end of the story, (usually long after their husbands have been laid to rest), that they have been carrying this vast supply of respect, given to them by God, for this very purpose, (to seed into the dirt of their unformed men), to create in their husbands, sons, fathers and friends the very HERO they have been desiring from their very meeting.
Food I can go without for a week, maybe a month, and if I was an Old Testament prophet as long as forty days, but the need for respect is something that supersedes the need for food significantly. Admittedly, the need for food will keep your body pumping and jumping, but the need for respect will keep you breathing in the Holy Spirit, following the example of Christ, and obeying the light of God the Father. For without respect received, life simply does not matter.
Now I know that seems heavy handed and over the top but bear with me for a second.
What brings life meaning? I did not say, what brings life happiness, (the fleeting seconds of euphoria that occur through circumstances) but rather what brings life meaning? My answer is simple as it is offensive... it is RESPECT.
- Inside this simple little word is the seed that will grow into the life of purpose and honour that men so desperately want to live.
- Inside this little word is the seed of direction from God that provides us a map and a boat to navigate through the swampland of reality. Not because it gives us the direction, that is reserved for the Heavenly Father, but the fact that without respect men cannot hear the voice of God. Their ears are too full of the voice of the enemy.
- Inside this little word is the seed of leadership that given enough encouragement and water, will grow into the oak that your family needs of you, and the oak that will provide shelter from all that this world will throw at you.
You see there are many men whose life is so filled with a desire to be respected that their empty regret of not finding it, corrupts their purpose, meaning and willingness to lay it all down for those they love, which is the core purpose of men. This emptiness leaves them with nothing. All their self awareness blocks are essentially gone, beaten down by the down-pouring of disrespect that this world and our enemy has dumped on them, and then watched as these self awareness blocks drained out of them because there was a lack of the essential element that can hold all the rest of these elements in place, respect.
So, where does that leave us? Well, my hearts escapes, from the table where I am sitting, to a time years ago when hope flowed freely into my heart, when peace was the tranquil lake on which my boat floated, where the saplings of character were nursed from the dirt of reality into the brightness of the plan of God by the soft, consistent, directed voice of respect.
So where does this leave us?
Ah... I remember... it's time to release the unmerited respect that they need and damn the torpedos!
Damn the criticism that will come, all the while breaking the tape measures that will be brought out to rate the men, and dole out the drops of respect given to them as they struggle for acceptance. Pour, release, scatter and overwhelm them with respect that no one agrees they deserve... because they don't.
Now...
I must pick up the voice of respect and declare it loud into the void, refusing to restrict the flow in anyway. "I must tell young men that they are respected to inspire what is expected."
I must speak the words of respect that will provide the young leaders around me with the frame work onto which they can build their lives. Their self awareness and belief will be hung from this framework and over time their lives will come into clearer focus, their expectations will come into clearer focus, because someone respected them.
I must speak the words of respect, that will protect and believe in their dreams, even when I know that most of these dreams will fall by the wayside. All the while, I must respect their chance to dream, in order to preserve the expectation that those dreams require.
I must violently defend the culture of respect, even when it refuses to respect me. Take the blows, the emotional beatings that will provide them a living example that they can see, of a man. That will respect them!
Then men of renown will rise from the dirt of this culture.
Then men of renown will rise from the brokenness of yesterdays failures into the truth of today's calling.
Then and only then will the men of renown begin to build on the foundational truth of the respect of today to guide them into the victories of tomorrow.
It's time.
