Raising a Knight

I am just about finished reading a book titled “Raising a Modern-Day Knight” by Robert Lewis.  If you have boys I would highly recommend checking this book out.  Robert Lewis does a great job on defining what a man should be and how to raise boys that will transition into manhood.  Which is something that our culture needs desparately.  After reading through most of it I know I will take some of the principles and begin using them.

Knights are missing, not only from reading this book, but looking around at our culture it is pretty apparent that men in a lot of ways have folded to the pressure of a passive society.  It is time that men begin to step back into the roles they were designed to take.  They love women correctly, not just use them, they love their sons and daughters, they step up at home.  Come on fellas, I know it can be tough at times, but I can’t imagine a better calling!! Loving your wife, loving you kids and loving your work!!

Decisions No One WANTS to MAKE

Not that I am the most experienced leader, but one thing I am learning is that leadership never gets easier, in fact it seems to get more and more challenging.  Over the past month I have had to make some very tough decisions knowing that not everyone would like my decisions, but they had to be made.  One of the things I learned is that you cannot make decisions based on if you will please everyone.  If you would have asked me about this a few months ago, I would have agreed, but never would have been able to convey how tough it is to follow through.  Leadership only gets tougher when you are trying to do everything you can to stay true to the greater calling God has placed on your life and you know you are going to hurt people.  The reality this is life, if you are going to lead, this is going to happen to you!  One leader told me if everyone loves you, you are not leading!! How true is that??  If you want to lead you need to expect situations to happen, just remember, who are you living to please?  Once you can answer that question, you will know what to do it tough spots.  If you are living to please a boss, then you will just do whatever it takes to please that boss, if it is  your spouse then you will make decisions  that will only please your spouse.  The problem with pleasing humans is that the standard always changes along with the feelings, situations and all of life’s up and downs.  This is why I try to look to the greatest leader of all time, Jesus.  Whether you like Jesus or not, history makes it very clear that he is one of the most powerful and influential leaders of all time.  I am not smart enough to expand in one blog on all of what made him so great, but the one I do want to point out is that he was committed to a cause greater than himself!  If you read about Him you will find that everything he did was for a cause bigger than any of his desires and that allowed him to take undue criticism, insult, arrest and even death.  What if we always led like this?  Would we make better decisions?  Would we sleep better?  Just a few thoughts….