What type of a personality are you? Are you a Type A, always excited and raring to go,…or are you a Type B,….more laid back, even keel, slow to get excited? I think many times people use conventional thinking,…. the consensus of the majority, as a good excuse to avoid discussing or dealing with an important or critical issue.
Ignorance of a subject that needs to be dealt with usually causes people, particularly people with unassertive personalities, to remain quiet. If a person is unsure of themselves and their position on an issue of discussion, it is always easier to remain silent or have very little to say about what is being discussed. Human nature seems always to want to avoid confrontation, avoid taking a firm position, or avoid having to defend its personal position on almost any subject.
I was very blessed to have grown up in a home with a strong leader father. He was college educated. He was a former World War II U.S. Navy Chief. He was a successful business leader and was actively involved in community service organizations. He was a great family man and demanded excellence in all of our individual and corporate family commitments and activities. Family things, activities, or engagements were always and only to be done correctly and done to full completion. No excuses, no half-done work, no unfinished projects. Excellence was the watch-word of our family’s performance.
With that sort of a background you can imagine how demanding he was of me, his oldest son, to be able to stand my own educated ground and properly take a position and articulate what that position was and why I stood on it. He demanded all three of his children learn how to express themselves and think for themselves and voice their learned opinion if ever asked to do so.
He used to say to me all the time, “You must be able to read, write and speak well, Buckshot, (that is what he called me) if you ever want to come close to what you are capable of becoming. Communication is of utmost importance when you are dealing with other people. And,…if you want to be successful,….you will have to deal with other people.”
His words still ring loud and clear in my ears even unto this day some 47 years after his death.
It seems like only yesterday that we would sit together and just visit about anything that came to mind. Free and open communication by and between parents and children is a wonderful thing. It is the most powerful way to teach your children.
FATHER-POWER is the stuff that builds boys into men and girls into women. It is the glue that holds families together. Father-power is learned from example. Human beings learn from observation. That is the way that you learned how to crawl, to walk, to eat, and to talk. It is the primary way that humans learn.
Now if you did not have a father that you ever knew, or grew up without one, or had a very weak nonperforming uninvolved earthly father, then your example and source of learning has to come from some sort of substitute, or surrogate father. If you find yourself in this situation, permit me to remind you that it is your own responsibility to find, search out, or seek, a substitute father or mother model in your life. May I recommend that you first begin by finding and regularly attending a good Bible believing and teaching church. Don’t be shy, timid, or tentative about meeting new friends and associates that you have or have not previously known. Stick your hand out, say “hello, my name is”……..Get actively involved in such a group. Get around the solid Christian men or women of such a church and begin befriending, knowing and associating with them. God will bring the right people into your life if you will simply get yourself into a proper position where He can do so.
After my earthly father passed away at age 55, (I was 20 years old at the time) I accepted a surrogate father. He was the father of my best friend. He loved me and I loved him just as if we shared the same DNA. He treated me as if I was his own biological son. His name was Walter Carr. My cup runneth over with love and affection every time I think about him.
God created man and woman to be very needy of strong and close personal relationships. He never intended for a person to be by themselves. He knew it was not good. So togetherness with other people is what God really wants for you. It is those personal relationships that will benefit and sustain you through the guaranteed “storms” of life that you face as each and every year comes and goes in your life. Strong and good personal relationships empower all of the parties who are involved in them. It is the mutual support and strength that springs from these type personal relationships and that undergirds each and every party to the relationship. You draw strength form me….and….I in return, draw strength from you. Good strong interpersonal relationships are always mutually beneficial.
God tells us in His Word that it is not good for a man or a woman to be alone.
If you want to achieve the best that you are capable of achieving, take plenty of time to initiate and develop strong, loving, and caring personal relationships with like-minded individuals who share your same values.
Don’t wait for them (other people) to approach or come to you. You take the initiative and go to them. You stick your hand out and say hello first. You first share your kindness and warmth towards another fellow human being ……You first give of yourself,…so that you can later then receive. It is the way God tells you to act.
It will take time to do so and it will take time spent together in each other’s presence if you want those friendships to grow and bloom and prosper. That is the way that God wants you to live……loving and serving other people.
To have a solid foundation on which to build your interpersonal relationships, start first with building a good one with God. Once that relationship is in place, the other ones with men and women will be easy
to build and develop.
Pain shared is halved…..
Joy shared is doubled….
Live, Love, and Serve other people….Always with the Joy of the Lord in your heart!
Peace and love to all of you…Poppa Bear