I once had a supervisor who was completely and totally incompetent. Like, ridiculously so. He was immature and insecure and indecisive and a bunch of other sub-par adjectives. Worst of all, he was a poor self-leader.
We had an incredibly dysfunctional relationship, of course, and at times it seemed as if our particular weaknesses and failings had met their opposite demon in each other. It was scary sick. To remember it today gives me chills sometimes. Picture the most rotten, putrifying relationship you have ever had. Then imagine inexplicably loving it; like finding the mold on a cadaver so beautiful that you lie down and sleep in its decomposing flesh. Bleccch.
One night I couldn’t sleep, so I was journaling about my pain and confusion regarding our relationship for I think around the 4,829th time. For some reason, I had been thinking about how so much of life is about removing obstacles, both inside and outside ourselves. It hit me that rather than see him as an obstacle to the rest of my happiness and success, I could see him as an instrument that was being used to remove obstructions from my own life.
As clear as day, I suddenly saw in my minds eye this vision of a scalpel, like the kind surgeons use when they are cutting someone open to remove a cancerous growth. My boss was the scalpel; held in the hands of One who was skillfully cutting away at the ugly infected mass.
I realized that everything that was going on with my boss was exposing areas of sickness and decay and disease that were already in me. The boss was simply the tool that was being used at that time.
How distracting and ineffective it would be for me to keep focusing on the instrument all the time, when it was really not the object. It was simply a tool.
And why, then, would I spend so much time asking for the scalpel to be removed or go away, when actually if it wasn’t for the delicate blade in expert hands, that cancerous tumor of sin and death would be alive and well and growing exponentially within me.
That was the day I started trying to be thankful for the scalpel.
To see it– the awful boss, the whole sadistic relationship —as a means to a good end. Even the rough edges that to me felt like the blunt sides of a surgical instrument that may even have been a bit rusty and definitely a germ risk, but ultimately much better than the alternative.
Again, to focus on the scalpel and to ask that it be dulled or removed would be absolutely counter-productive. If the purpose is to eliminate my sickness, then I needed to welcome this kind of spiritual surgery for what it was—life-changing, rather than life-threatening.
Just in case you haven’t already been hit over the head with the Obvious Hammer, this was a huge moment of self-leadership in my professional life. I had to step up and take responsibility for the part I had played in this terrible petri dish of a relationship. I needed to stop contributing to the twisted dynamics and cruel manipulations, and surrender to the surgery that was taking place in my soul. It was time to let go of what was making me so sick, and to get well.
Do whatever it takes to get well today. Let confession sterilize you. Surrender to whatever treatment you are undergoing that is removing a disease that could eventually take you out. Find some trusted surgeons, share with them what’s wrong, and let the healing process begin.