EggShells Part 4: Egg-X-it Wounds

7 Possible Responses from Leadership

Any transition creates both challenges and opportunities for leaders left behind. If they regret you leaving, do not take this in a negative way. It means they valued you and your contribution.

If they criticize or

1. Favor

Superior who gives freedom to leave, support, encouragement

Ex. Moses’ father Jethro

2. Friend

Peer who gives perspective and encouragement when leaving

Friends provide: fellowship, perspective, value.

Ex. Jonathan helped David know when to leave and how to leave

3. Free

Superior who gives freedom to leave.

Ex.

4. Fear

Superior who is afraid of you or your potential response This may be justified or unjustified. How we leave determines whether or not their fears were groundless. If we leave criticizing them as we go, their fears were justified. They may be afraid of our potential success if we stay or go- so base your decision on the leading of God and not fear of leaving or staying.

Ex. Egyptians fearing Israelites would leave

5. Fiend

Superior who distrusts you

Ex. Saul jealous of David being praised

6. Foe

Superior who fears you, distrusts you and actively opposes you

Ex. Saul, Pharoah

Egg-X-cellence

The crucial factor in a transition is to let your behavior be defined by God, not your previous leaders. You must do what is right whether they do or not. If you do, God will bless and vindicate you in time. If you do not, you will damage relationships and your own reputation. There is something beautiful and heroic about a person who chooses to bless those who curse them. There is something undeniably unhealthy about any person who rants and criticizes everyone they worked for before.

7. Fathers VS Labans

Fathers birth us, raise us, invest in us and prepare us for our destiny.

Fathers provide a place, a purpose and provision.

-Place: God prepared the garden. A place where they were welcomed and accepted. Where they could grow, love, live in safety and peace.

-Purpose: rule the earth, subdue it. A job, a role, responsibility.

-Provision: all they needed, and when they sinned- again all they needed

Labans see our potential and use us for their benefit.

Labans demand the authority of a father without providing the spiritual covering.

Work for Laban.

Learn from Laban.

Leave Laban when God calls, when your debts are paid, when your family is in jeopardy.

Do not look to Laban as a spiritual Father.

God can train you and prosper you in Laban’s household. But Laban’s household will never be home. You will never be unconditionally accepted. Your place will always be contingent on your performance.

In a home, you belong. Your place is based on relationship. In Laban’s house, your place is only based on your performance. Even Laban’s daughters were viewed as property to be traded for Jacob’s profitable service.

Laban does not serve the Lord, but will honor your relationships with the Lord and seek to exploit it. Witchcraft and idolatry are means of attempting to control and manipulate spiritual forces to accomplish what humans wish to accomplish. It is trying to harness the supernatural to the will of flesh. A right relationship with God will never function in this way. We should never seek to subject God’s power to our will. Rather we seek to subject our will to God’s plan and purpose, depending on Him to utilize His power to accomplish those things that we cannot.

Looking to Laban as a Spiritual father will result in defining our worth according to our performance. This is perhaps the greatest tyranny of all. Our value becomes tied up in what we perceive Laban thinks about us.

COMPARE JACOB VS LABAN

Fathers define us, refine us, direct us. Labans use us and exploit us.

Fathers birth or adopt us. Laban's hire or enslave us.

Fathers give to us. Laban's pay us.

Fathers provide us an inheritance. Laban's provide us a contract.

Fathers bless and send us to build our own families. Labans criticize and control us, claiming our property and accomplishments as their own.

(If you have labored for the Lord, this is disheartening but not devastating. If you have labored for man, this is devastating.)

It does not matter how much you do for a Laban, they will never send you off well. They will always feel entitled to more from you. They would leave you empty-handed, cheated out of what is yours and claim that all you have is theirs.

Genesis 28:1–4 NIV84

So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him and commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman. Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham.”

Jacob had just deceived his father to obtain his brother’s blessing.

A father will always bless you when you leave- even if they don't approve of the decision to leave. They will never send you away empty handed.

Labans are motivated by pride. They feel entitled. No amount of service will ever be enough. They will always be resentful. They would take years of service and still send Jacob away empty handed if it were up to them. Laboring for Laban’s will never result in praise or appreciation. Don't wait for it. Do what is right despite the injustice.

Fathers talk to us. Labans talk about us.

When a leaders talks about you more than they talk to you, you are serving an older brother and not a father.

The question is not whether or not you are imperfect- of course you are. We all are. The question is whether or not someone is threatened by God's purpose for you or committed to helping you fulfill it.

Fathers give us time. Labans give us tasks.

If someone is not willing to invest quality time with you, then chances are it is a Laban relationship.

Fathers discipline us when we fail. Labans raise an army to destroy us.

Proverbs 3:12 NIV84

because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.

A father corrects. If a leader won't correct you it is an indication they don't see you as a son.

-We all need correction. If someone is not correcting you, it does not mean you are doing things perfectly. It means they do not value you enough to deal with the mess of your mistakes. It means they do not value you and your potential enough to deal with the hassle of confronting you.

Proverbs 27:5 NIV84

Better is open rebuke than hidden love.

You may not fit, but you do belong.

You may have outgrown the egg. That is a good thing. You should not disown your family that birthed and nurtured you.

Do not let the fickleness of humanity crush you. Those who praise you today will crucify you tomorrow.

Give yourself to God. He will humble you today and resurrect you from the dead tomorrow, promoting you to a place of honor and delight.

If you are grinding the eggshell it shows your energy is misdirected. Rather than looking to God and spreading your wings- what you should be doing, you are simmering in anger and bitterness. Let it go. Move on. Fly!

If you are stomping on egg shells it shows you do not understand the mission of your next season. It shows that you are wasting your energy looking back rather than looking forward. It shows that you don't appreciate that which formed you, nor the purpose for which you were formed.

If you are walking on EggShells you don’t need to glue the egg back together. You need to spread your wings and fly!

If you are stomping on egg shells it shows you do not understand the mission of your next season.

It shows that you are wasting your energy looking back rather than looking forward. It shows that you don't appreciate that which formed you, nor the purpose for which you were formed.

As long as your emotional energy is spent reliving the past, it cannot be invested into developing your future.