For seven days now we have been able to look into the short letter written from Paul to Philemon regarding Onesimus. Paul wants Philemon to take Onesimus onto Philemon’s team and to mentor and give him an opportunity to grow and develop under Philemon’s leadership. We have seen that in just one letter that Paul has modeled and given us the words and the tone of a true leader. As we conclude this series, there is one other message that is important to glean from Paul’s request to Philemon. Throughout the letter he very much centered his words as supporting and respectful and if we stopped right here it would be a great set of lessons for us in our everyday work but there is more. We all have had, or have now, bosses, who are demanding and push us to do more and get better. Sometimes this is done well and respectfully and other times (the ones we most remember) our bosses have not been respectful of us and we wonder, “do they even understand me?”. Our time gets disrespected, our self-esteem gets challenged and our opinions can get belittled and sometimes we might just feel taken advantaged of as a person. Regardless, when this happens to us we find ourselves unhappy and resentful. We find ourselves wishing our boss would be more like Paul. But, the other lesson to see in the letter to Philemon is that Paul was not a push-over kind of boss and he made it clear to Philemon that he expected, regardless of the words he used, that Philemon “raise the bar”. In verse 21 he says; “I am confident as I write this letter that you will do what I ask and even more.”. Paul expected that Philemon would get better and raise his performance. Now Paul says it in a nicer way than most bosses, but the same expectation is there. If we are thinking that this thing called work is about finding a level of performance that we feel comfortable in and then setting cruise control, then we are going to be sorely disappointed. We must strive to get better, work smarter and more efficiently. For some it may be we need to actually work harder, find another gear within ourselves and constantly be growing and bettering ourselves. Paul was not going to be happy that Philemon just accepted his request and complied. He was not going to be satisfied until Philemon did even more than what was being asked of him. As we conclude this series of posts, my prayer is that you take in all of the lessons and examples that Paul has given us on how to lead and the words that he chose to make a request of his subordinate, and that these lessons help you in your own points of leadership, but also that you see that work is about being led, developed and grown and yes, sometimes pushed to the next level of your potential. Your attitude on how you accept all of these messages from your boss is as much about your own happiness in your job as anything else. Each and every day we are faced with the choice of how we will respond when faced with new challenges. The challenges will not always come to us in the neat, tidy and respectful words of Paul, but let’s try and listen through the words that do come to us and respond in a way that would be fitting for how God wants us to be within our work and on the job.

Reference: Philemon 1:21 (New Living Testament)