His favorite: Getting relationships right by knowing where your favor, privilege, power and authority comes from.

It’s a funny thing, how favorites work.

Growing up as the daughter and granddaughter of some pretty powerful folks, I was certainly privileged as a result.  All my life in one area or another, I can say I was considered somebody’s favorite: Choir directors, professors, instructors, coaches, artists, boss’s, friends.

Everyone is someone’s favorite.

Everyone is privileged.

Everyone has authority.

Everyone has power.

It’s manifested in relationship: Stranger-stranger, Friend-friend, sibling-sibling, parent-child, teacher-student, law enforcer-civilian, elected official-constituent, pastor-member, employer-employee, husband-wife, team leader-team.

What’s funny is, privilege, favoritism, power and authority exacerbate and expose the spirit of the person receiving favor and the person extending it.

So being someone’s favorite, being privileged, having power and authority isn’t about ease or luxury.  It’s about who you are, at your core.

If you’re broken, being someone’s favorite can be the worst fuel for self-abuse imaginable:  Your lack of self-worth will drive you to question the favor and rebel against it, both dishonoring authority, yourself, and the means for your advancement.  No matter how perfect the person extending favor is, you will turn their support into an utter waste because of your inability to receive their investment and deliver return.

If you’re broken, being someone’s favorite can send you spiraling out of control, lost in a perceived bubble of protection, free to waste your life away without purpose or consequence.  Frivolity and randomness will be a poor mask for your struggle against the need to prove your worthiness, at the same time you reject the very notion of privilege.  You’ll stifle yourself in exhaustion, fighting to win a loser’s battle.

And, you’ll still know you’re wrong, making your sense of inadequacy and disqualification even worse.  Favor can crush you with your own weakness.  Worst of all, the impact you were meant to have by being lifted by favor and privilege will be limited, and you’ll have no idea what that might mean for someone else.

If you’re broken, your authority and power can fuel a terrible cycle of abuse: Your insecurity will drive you to dangle privilege like a drug only available for purchase with submission, martyrdom, and sacrifice.  No matter how perfect the person receiving favor is, your favor will strike like a weapon, turning their need into a wound through your inability to lovingly invest and nurture yield.

If you’re broken, your authority will drive you to wield your power with false humility,  trepidation, and fear, diminishing your authority, yourself, and those you favor.  Non-transparency  and inconsistency will poorly mask your struggle against the need to justify your authority, at the same time you reject the very notion of power.  Exhausted, you’ll stifle yourself and those you extend favor to, promoting divisiveness and stagnation instead of unity and growth.

And you’ll know you’re wrong, further intensifying the sense of fear, compelling a controlling paranoia as armor against vengeful retaliation from those you seek to control.  Worst of all, the impact you were meant to have by being granted power and authority will implode instead of having expansive reach, and you’ll have no idea what losses you might have caused in the process.

When you’re whole, being someone’s favorite is an awe-inspiring revelation of responsibility, the vision of understanding you’ve been set apart and shielded for a purpose.  When you’re whole, privilege is stewarded with care in service to the authority who offers it.

When you’re whole, authority is a humbling revelation of service, the vision of understanding your life and light is so limitless and powerful you’ve been set above to pour into others, leading them into their purpose.  When you’re whole, authority is stewarded with submission to the God who grants it.

Relationships of authority in wholeness aren’t one-dimensional, one-directional, crushing dictatorial edicts of dogmatic acceptance and blind submission that fester in irresponsibility, avoidance and failure.  They are multifaceted, supportive, life-affirming, accountable, powerful exchanges of honorable, seamless, unstoppable teamwork.

If you’re broken, even the revelation that you’re God’s favorite can become fuel for self-abuse.  That same sense of unworthiness will manifest as resistance to receiving His healing, perfecting love:  Crippling you, setting off a spiral of pointless perfectionism and obsession with proving worthiness… For the one source of love that truly and completely accepts you just as you are.

God not only has the ultimate authority and power, He is it.  And everyone is His favorite.  He has no need to justify, qualify, prove, or wield His power: It is.  And it’s so pure and overwhelming He’s aching to pour it out on us.

God has no need to self-aggrandize by boasting, or forcing anyone to seek His power.

Still, every single one of us… Even as we ignore, belittle, and act like God’s nothing to us and doesn’t exist: Never speaking, never listening, never acknowledging…  Even as we degrade ourselves and deny who we are, even as we shrink away from our privilege in cowardice…  Every single one of us is His very favorite.  He can do that.

As we come into another chance, another year, another cycle, another season, why not ask:

• How whole am I really?  
• Do I really know where my favor, my authority and my power comes from?  
• How whole are my relationships really?  
• How relevant are my relationships to my purpose?

An honest examination of yourself, your life, your relationships without judgment, accusation or fear will show you where you may have work to do.  And because human beings are created for relationship, you can’t afford to wait:  Your brokenness and confusion is holding someone else back, and you have no way of knowing how.

When you look, and you find fixing to be done, bring it to God.

No one will know.

If you don’t know how, it’s simple:  That same prayer you utter when you think to yourself, “I hope _______” or “Please let_____” is the same prayer you take to God.  You don’t have to be anywhere, say anything, or know anything special.  You just have to be honest.  He’s not your punisher, hater, judger or rejector.  Not only is everything already okay to Him, He can fix what ever’s wrong if you ask.

So ask.  Ask Him to really, really check you out and tell you what to do.  You’ll know His voice: Don’t confuse it for your own.

No one will know.

Then, show how seriously you take getting this relationship, favor and authority thing right by obeying Him.  No one will know (but it’s better when the right people do).

You’ll notice a difference.

Slow and sure.

You have to live with you: Waking, sleeping, all day long.

So why not get yourself in order?