The Abdication of Authority: Authority (Part 12)
Categories: Authority, Léo’s Insights 2019-2020
Tags: authority
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, then created a bunch of things on the earth, ending with the creation of man in His image and in His likeness. He then provided Adam with a helpmeet called woman and instructed them to reproduce and subdue the earth. This is the condensed version!
God and Adam were buddies. They would get together daily, have a few beers and talk about old times and the day’s activities. Okay, maybe I am embellishing the story a bit, but Adam did have fellowship with God; that is, until Adam decided to listen to his wife, who had been fooled by the serpent into believing they could be equal with God.
Perhaps the legal axiom of the created not being greater or equal to the creator hadn’t yet been discovered! In any case, we know the rest of the story. That one act separated us from God, who throughout history has made the odd appearance in one way or another, culminating in Jesus Christ, sent to redeem man and creation.
That fateful day at ground zero of creation put us forever at odds with God. We have been trying to push Him off His throne ever since. All He wanted was for us to have a peaceful life of freedom.
We have been fighting each other ever since, seeking dominion, peace and freedom, yet it continues to elude us. If we are successful, it is only temporary and we are right back at some kind of war to re-establish those elusive desires.
However, we must understand that God’s pre-emptive plan started at the fall and culminated with Jesus who promised us, you guessed it, peace and freedom! He restored His Lordship and empowered us all to reclaim our rightful position within His creation.
To me, that means we need to understand the rules (jurisdictions), authority and the power derived from it. If we don’t, we will, like Eve, be tricked into surrendering what is truthfully ours for facsimiles of what we want.
Perhaps a funny story is in order here.
An employee of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) paid a farmer a visit one day. He promptly informed the farmer that he had authority to inspect any and all things on this farm and proved it by showing the farmer his badge, authorizing him to do so.
The farmer replied that if that was the case, he would not get in the agent’s way, but he did warn him that the pasture behind the barn was best avoided. Once again, the agent reiterated that he had the authority to go anywhere he wanted, to which the farmer replied, “suit yourself.”
A half hour later the farmer heard a blood curdling scream and saw the agent being chased by a rather large and very ornery bull. Feeling somewhat vindicated the farmer yelled at the agent to “show him your badge.”
Needless to say, this funny story is just that, but it still carries a very important message. The bull would never have subjugated himself to this agent and he sure was not going to submit to a claim that had no application to him. In other words, the bull called bull on the agent’s claim.
Now we must understand that the bull knew nothing outside of being a bull. We, on the other hand, can easily fall for claims being made with “the badge” or “the card,” especially if we are not aware of who we are and what authority we have. If we don’t, and we allow others to claim an authority that is not rightfully theirs, we validate their false claims and empower them to make even more demands of us that are just not legitimate.
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