Walking In Authority - A Coach's Call To Obedience

When the room heats up and the plan falls apart, titles and talent won’t carry you. We dig into the hard edge of leadership—why authority only works when it’s aligned and obedient—and we get specific about how responsibility beats hype in business, community, and faith spaces. From the rush to promote “ready” people who lack the heart of the house to the quiet ways social media erodes credibility, we trace the gap between performance and substance and show how to close it.

You’ll hear vivid stories that stick: the credentialed manager who wilts in a slammed kitchen, the defender who makes a “business decision” at contact, and the seven sons of Sceva trying to spend authority they never earned. We contrast that with David’s restraint under Saul and the traffic cop’s quiet jurisdiction at a dead light to show a simple pattern—real power flows from being under authority first. Confidence, degrees, and charisma help, but obedience authenticates. That’s where teams trust you and results last.

We also lay out a practical reset. Audit your last 30–60 days of choices and words. Map where you’ve freelanced against the mission. Invite a mentor to press your blind spots. Replace shortcuts with process, spotlight with stewardship, and noise with presence—because private discipline fuels public impact. If you lead anything—a crew, a class, a ministry, or a home—this is your call to realign before exposure finds the cracks.

If this resonated, follow and leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, subscribe on YouTube at youtube.com/@theycallmemistayu and share this episode with someone who needs a nudge from hype to healthy authority. What’s one area you’ll realig

WANT A SHOUT-OUT ON THE PODCAST? SEND Mista Yu a text at: (904) 867-4466. Leave your first name and the city you're reaching out to us from. We'll shout you out on the next Fan Mail episode.

Transcript

Welcome And How To Find Episodes

Why Leadership Feels Broken

Responsibility Over Hype

Alignment Before Activation

Skills Without Heart Misfire

Authority Exercised Through Obedience

Social Media, Conduct, And Consequence

Alignment, Not Confidence Or Titles

Under Authority Like A Traffic Cop

Obedience Authenticates Authority

The Seven Sons Of Sceva Lesson

Private Devotion Fuels Public Power

David, Saul, And Respecting Rank

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome back to the Everyday Edge Podcast and the Inspiration Station. I'm your host, Mr. Yu. Glad to have you back in the box with us today. If you are looking for any of our prior episodes, you're interested in what we've done before, our episodes have gone. Upper right hand corner of your screen is a QR code. You can grab that to catch all the episodes up to now. And of course, going into the future, you can find episodes on that QR code. So thanks again for watching and listening to the Inspiration Station and your Everyday Edge podcast. So we've been talking a lot about leadership in recent weeks, only because when we look around us and we survey the landscape of the country, of the world at large, even in the circles where we live, work, and play, we see problems with leadership. It's kind of hard to ignore that. So I think the tone of this episode is going to be some pastoral, some executive coach, some just coming from the uh standpoint of a friend. I want to speak to you guys about what it means to walk in our authority, specifically spiritual authority in this case. There are some values that we need to be upholding when we're in this space. And I know that this is elementary to many of you that watch and listen. I'm pretty uh in tune with our audience. So I hear you guys when you send messages over to me and you drop uh comments and reviews of the show. I can definitely hear what you guys are saying. And one of the things I know that even though we may understand what we think needs to be done, it's good to have somebody in your corner, like a coach, kind of sharing with you what's going on in the blind spot that perhaps you're not seeing. So even if it's elementary to some of you, please keep your listening ears on. I almost are pretty positive you're gonna hear something that's gonna be a blessing to you and help direct you in times and days and weeks and months and years to come. So one of the values that I think is really, really important is responsibility over hype. A lot of people are because they come from broken places. I won't get too deep into that in this episode, but people that come from broken places, what you'll find is that when they offer the opportunity to be in authority over somebody else, they relish it. They salivated the idea of being in charge, having a schedule, organizing things and organizing people and telling them what to do. It gives them power. It makes them feel as though they're in control. Largely because a lot of their life was spent without having any sense of control. So now that they have it, they're like a dog off of the chain. They're loosed, and they are really caught up in the hype and the idea of being a leader or being the head person in charge. But there's a responsibility in leadership. The Bible even talks about somebody who is or aspires to be a teacher. You set yourself up for double condemnation if you step outside of that calling, step outside of that responsibility and teach something that could damage people and damage generations. That's the responsibility of leadership. So we got to definitely touch that part. Alignment before activation. There are people who've been put in positions. You name the genre, you name the place. It could be in the business world, in the government sector when I was working there, probably still even after I've left. Even in the world of retail and technical support and customer service, you can see this. Even in the world of ministry and faith-based communities, you can see this. You can see it in any area where leadership is required. People are activated before they're aligned. They're put into positions to do certain things that don't even, but they don't even have the heart of the leader, they don't even have the heart of the organization. They just have skills they brought to the table because they have a degree in such and such, or they took a course, or they read a book on such and such. So now they feel as though they're ready to go. And something, sometimes, and it's a slight to those that put them in this position, but sometimes they activate before the person is fully aligned with what they say. What they say is important to them as an organization. There was a time where I spent a good bit of my career as an interviewer slash recruiter, if you will. And what I noticed, and I think everybody that's ever interviewed or recruited anybody, you know it, you've seen it before. It's not really news to you. People will come into your office and they will say whatever it is they think you want to hear in order for them to get that job position. And honestly, they can be pretty dishonest. They say how much they studied the company and how much they know about the company and what the company has done, and they'll recite random things that they grab from the internet. But at the end of the day, they're not really aligned with the vision because their heart is in a different place. They desire and crave something different than what the organization is showing. And it always comes out in the wash at some point in their career. You see, you know what, this person wasn't aligned, but they were already activated. Let's keep moving. Authority exercised through obedience. Then it kind of speaks for itself. If someone's being called to be a king or a leader over a region or area, there is an authority, an inherent authority that they have. And what we have to recognize is that when we see authority, if we're under authority, we need to recognize that and honor that, not try to usurp it, not try to go above it because we don't like the person who's in authority, or we don't like where they come from, or the way the way they talk, or the way they dress, or we think doesn't matter. If they're in authority, they're in authority. And the question is going to be should they be in authority? And are they walking in it appropriately? That's a different topic. Not sure we're going to touch that today, but that's just something to think about. And think about the outward impact of leadership. So I believe that authority begins with alignment. I don't want to lose you guys. Let me know if if you're hearing something you don't understand. I'm happy to talk about it offline. Drop a comment in the chat in the comment section of the episode. Let me know what you're thinking, how you're feeling about what you're hearing. Does it make sense? Share a story that may resonate with you on kind of uh what we're talking about today as a topic. And if you if you're not too afraid to be transparent, I believe it's going to help somebody else that's watching and listening. So please do that. All right. So authority begins with alignment. It's not about your confidence, it's not about your skills, it's not about how good you are in these spaces. I've seen people, even in the culinary world, when I was back in those days, people who had the degrees to run a restaurant. But check out what I said. They had a degree that said they can run a restaurant. But when they got in the restaurant and felt the heat, literally and fearly, they felt the heat from the kitchen. They felt the heat from the pressure of getting in the weeds and having so many orders and not enough uh people to do it, and getting behind customers getting anxious and getting upset and jumping on the servers because they've been sitting there for 30, 45, 60 minutes, all they have is water and bread. That person, that degree is not going to help you. That degree may have given you some rights or a skill set or persona that you can walk in in that kitchen, but when you're back there, confidence ain't gonna help you. You need some understanding, you need wisdom on how to handle the situation because it gets really fiery and intense. All you guys that are watching that have been in food service or still are, you get what I'm talking about. Authority begins with alignment, not confidence, not skill set, but alignment. It's not a function of your personality or your passion or position. It comes from being under authority, being submitted to authority. And I want to speak, and this is just something that I feel like it's important, especially when it comes to ministry circles. I see so much on our social media platforms lately, and they're very, very concerning to me because when you put something out there on social media, you you gotta understand that it's it's kind of like forever, you know, it's it's there. You can't really take it back. It's been seen, it's been felt, it's been touched. It's kind of like trying to throw a rock into a crowd, and then somebody gets hit, and like, oh, that hurt me so much. You can apologize all day, but they've been hit, they've been hurt. And you can't take that pain away by just by saying, I'm sorry. So when we send something out on social media, which are many people who call themselves or profess to be believers, that's what they're doing out there right now, especially now with what's going on. And they're saying things out of their mouth, they're making declarations about other people, they're bringing other people down character-wise and assassinating their character. And then you wonder why you can't walk in the blessings. Spiritual authority is not about position or about personality, it comes from alignment, being aligned with Christ, being aligned with who you say you believe in. And if you don't want to go into the faith-based realm, that's fine. Use your company, use your business. When something is going on out there, or somebody shows out at a ballpark with who's seen in recent months, somebody shows out in a public place and they act a fool. What are people on social doing right now? They're trying to find a person's employer and get these folks fired. And usually it ends up working. The company is not happy with the employees' uh behavior in public spaces and their conduct, and they're embarrassed by it, and they usually let the person go. Why? Because the person is out of alignment with the organization, with what the organization has uh prided itself on, what the organization stands for. Matthew 28 and 18 says, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. What that's saying, that's from the words of Jesus Christ Himself. What that's saying is that we have the authority because he gave it to us. So we have authority to decree things, to declare things, to even see things change. We have the ability to walk in a level of power. It's what's in the Greek it's called exucia, it's an authority. It refers to having a lawful jurisdiction. That means we can stand in this capacity and we don't have to be afraid because we know that we're called to stand here, we're called to be here. Just like if the police are called to a certain location, they have the right to be there. They're responding to a call, they have authority to be in that place. If you're standing at a stoplight and a stoplight's not working, and a cop is standing in front of you with his hands out saying, Stop, stop driving, letting the other cars go through directing traffic, you can go ahead and run them over if you want to, but the bottom line is that the cop has authority to tell you to stop and telling people to go. Why? Because of their name or who they're related to or because of the uniform that they wear. They're walking in authority because they are actually under authority. Are you under authority? Can people tell from your attitude and your conduct that you're under authority? Christ didn't have to claim he had authority, he just declared it it was already settled and he walked in it. He's believing that also for us. And that authority is the foundation of the whole entire Christian mission. That's what it's all about. That he walks in his authority, he walks in the mission that he's called to walk in. And I want to say this because I believe this is really, really important. And I believe John Calvin said this: that authority is never separated from obedience when it comes to God's order. I'm not trying to get deep in religious, I'm just trying to make a point here because you need to understand that whether you are part of an organization that has nothing to do with faith-based communities or nothing to do with religious organizations. Authority is never separated from obedience. Never. You don't have authority and then have the right to not obey the authority you're under. No can do. Authority is never separate from obedience. Look at where you are and where you lead and where you have a specific authority and a role where you lead people, people are subject to you. Can you say right now that you're walking in obedience? That's really, really important right now to be thinking about. Are you walking in obedience right now? Where have you substituted your confidence for alignment? So you know what? I'm confident in this, so I don't have to answer to anybody else. I don't have to do what they're doing. I know people, I have seen this literally for three decades now. People who are under authority, they are part of an organization that they don't run, they're not in control of it. They may have a role in it of some leadership style or some kind of leadership uh position, but they don't they don't run the organization. But they arbitrarily decide what they're gonna do and what they're not gonna do within the organization. They basically make business decisions with somebody else's business, if that makes sense to you. They're out here making executive decisions. Case in point, if you're a sports fan like I am, you're probably watching a whole lot of football right now. I'm not getting a whole lot, but this is normally the standard for this time of year for me. I'm falling a little bit short of the standard, but a lot of reasons for that happening right now. But on the football field, for example, even if you don't know football, this is analogy should be really, really simple for you. If you're on defense when your offense is running to play, your job is to defend, defend the end zone. Make sure that this person doesn't get past you if you encounter them, you tackle them, you bring them down, make sure that the ball goes no further than you. That's your job as defense. There are times, and we see it all the time, you can see it on tape. It's not really hard to find. There are times where this one gentleman, I won't say his name, I want to make it too uh specific. But there's a running back of a certain team, he's really big. It's about 6'4, 250, 260, 260 pounds. When he's running toward a guy that's 5'9, 195. I've seen times where that defender who's 5'9, 195, decide that he's not gonna tackle that person. That man is so big, like a freight train, he's gonna run me over, it's gonna be embarrassing. So I'm gonna give it a half-hearted effort. I'm gonna try to tackle him a little bit, but I ain't gonna hurt myself and embarrass myself out here in these streets. What people call in the sports or football business, what they call that is a business decision. The defender is making a business decision on the field. He works for the team and he knows his job and assignment, but he decided, you know what, on this particular instance, on this play, I'm gonna not do my job. I'm gonna not follow coaches' instructions, even if it's gonna hurt my team. I can't have it hurt me personally. It can't embarrass me personally. So even though in this case I'm gonna force the team and make a business decision and not tackle this 6'4, 265-pound record machine that's coming directly toward me at top speed. I'm not gonna tackle him because it could hurt me more than it's gonna hurt him. It embarrassed me more than it's gonna embarrass him. So I'm not gonna tackle him. The defender made a business decision. People do that kind of stuff in industry, in organization, in community all the time. They make a business decision, they have authority in a certain place, they have an understanding of what their responsibility is, their obligations are, and they decide day to day what they're gonna do. People who come to work late, they gotta be there at nine o'clock, they know they have to o'clock, they have to punch. They're gonna be there at nine o'clock, and they show up at 9:15, and shortly shortly is like, Well, I'm here. Who can what does it matter? With all these little time stamps and all this, all this time, all this data, it gets crunched at the end of the week to produce a check. Money comes out of the company's budget to pay you. You're under authority, but you're making a business decision about what you're gonna do and not do that's against company standards. You get where I'm going with this? There is a responsibility and authority, and it's always linked to obedience. Always, I don't care what the situation is, it's always linked to obedience because you're always under somebody's authority. You're not autonomous, you're under somebody's authority at some point in time. And the authority, and this is something I believe was uh reference to uh I forgot who the person was, but authentic authority is authenticated by your obedience. If you walk in authority, if you walk in real authority, it's because of your obedience. There's a scripture that, and I don't have the address right in front of me because I didn't prepare to talk about this, but there's a scripture uh in the Bible about the seven sons of skeba. It's it's funny because the story is is it's often preached with a little bit of tongue in cheek, and it's kind of hilarious. But there were these men, seven sons of skeba, who fancied themselves as uh exorcists, if you will. And they thought that they could do what the apostle Paul was doing throughout the region, where he was praying for people, people were getting healed because of what he was praying and how he was praying, with the authority he prayed with, and people were having uh inner healings done and and and spiritual maladies cast out of their body, and they said, you know what, that looks really cool. I'm gonna try it too. So they encountered a man who was full of what the Bible calls a demonic spirit and the seven sons of skipped seven sons against one person, the math ain't mapping, but they tried to do what Paul did try to try to pray this man healthy, try to pray this man whole, even though he had something inside of him that was not of this world. And the scripture talks about it how they said, I command you by the same. Name that Paul used by the same God that Paul worships and lives for. I don't, I'm not under that authority. I don't live for that God. I don't worship that God. I'm not yielded to that God, but Paul is. So I'm going to invoke his name and all that comes with it. The authority, the power, the lifestyle, and try to cast this thing out of this man. Well, the results were disastrous. The men were embarrassed, beaten, torn to shreds, stripped down naked, and had to run through the city embarrassed and ashamed, and beaten, and bloodied. Because essentially, they tried to use authority they didn't have. I hope that preaches. In what areas do you not have authority? They're trying to exercise authority. Are you okay with staying in your own land? Do you understand the importance of that? If not from that story, just won't be shared about so far in the episode. Because I really believe that there's a link between authority and obedience that we can't shake. And for me, I feel as though the reason why Apostle Paul had that level of authority was because privately he exercised that authority through obedience. He sat and listened, he prayed, he sought the Lord, he fasted, he cried out to God, he worshiped the Lord, and he was given authority. Moses went to the mount to speak with God, to commune with God. So much so that he came back with such authority that Moses was basically shining. The man was like a light bulb. He was shining. That's how, because of the impact of being in the presence. How are you impacted from the presence of God, you know, for yourself? What's your takeaways from those times? How are you growing? How are you changing? Are you the same person you were before you went in? Authority and obedience are linked. If you don't get anything else, please get that part because somebody who's watching today, no matter where you are, what genre you're in, what kind of workforce you're in, what you do for a living, whatever that is, you are under somebody's authority somewhere in life. You're under somebody's authority. You can't just do what you want in the public square, wherever you want to. You're under authority somewhere. If it's not the government, if it's not the police, if it's not your parents, if you're underage, if it's not your boss in the workplace, your employer, if it's not your pastors in faith and in church ministries, you're under authority somewhere. Are you being obedient to that authority? Is it showing publicly because you're living it out privately? Here's what I want you guys to do to just to think about this. A few simple exercises, and we're gonna go ahead and close this show out because I believe that the message is pretty clear. Authority and obedience are linked. And if there is not an obedient lifestyle to go with it, that authority falls short. It becomes suspect. At the end of the day, it is still authority. Let me show you how I know this. If you look in the book of 1 Samuel, probably anywhere around the 15th, 16th chapter, going into chapter 20 and 21 of 1 Samuel. What you're gonna see is a man who was called to be a king known as David, but there was still a king in on the throne at that time named Saul. And Saul wanted to kill David because he was jealous of David eventually succeeding him and it not going to his son and the kingdom being lost from their family line forever. So he tried to kill David on multiple occasions. David had an opportunity to get the jump on Saul short story, the Mr. U version of the story, but he never took advantage of that. Why? Because even though he was called to be the king, he still respected authority. Do you respect the authority that surrounds you? Do you respect the authority over you? I don't mean you know them and you pat them on the back and you crack jokes with them and you go out fishing with them and and you go out to coffee with them. I'm saying, do you respect the authority over you? Does it show in your public life? Can anybody that's walking by in at random see that you respect the authority over you? Some people is an emphatic yes, but some they might have to think about it. Have I been respecting authority? I respect those folks, at least thinking about it. Not automatically assuming they are without evaluating everything. So this is what I want you to do. As listeners of this show, hearing this topic today on spiritual authority, I want you to take some time to do a few things. One, I want you to spend a week auditing where you're aligned and where you're not. Look at the decisions that you've made in the past 30 days. Look at the words you spoke out of your mouth. Do you take time to audit these things or do you just move on to the next day and forget the damage that you might have done yesterday? I think that's irresponsible. And I want to encourage you to not do that going forward. Think about the, I mean, we should think we should think about that kind of stuff in the end in the in the moment that we're doing it before it happens. It doesn't always happen that way. If we're just being honest about it, we human make mistakes. But take some time. If it takes you a week, take some or longer, take some time to audit the decisions that you've made over the past 30 to 60 days. Audit the words that you spoke out of your mouth that you told people. Write some stuff down. Look at what you said. See if you can find alignment with the word of God, alignment with the authority that you're under, the contract you may assign or the company that you work that you work for, and think about that. Does it measure up? Your posture as a leader in the areas where you lead. Does it measure up with what you are, the authority that you're under? You might find this an episode uh exercise that's not worth your time, but I hope you reconsider that and think about it. Because people want to be authorized before they get aligned. People want to be in charge before they understand what they're in charge of and the responsibilities that come with it. Take some time to look at where you have obeyed and where you haven't. What have you heard that you were supposed to be doing that you just have not done? What was screaming, take care of this, take care of me, and you haven't done it yet. And we're going into 2026. Take some time to be intentional about thinking about this kind of stuff. I think it's more than worth your time to audit your life. Some folks are doing that at the end of the year during a holiday, which is not a true audit because you're not even focused on that. You focus on turkey and Christmas gifts and trees and lights and pumpkin pies and whatnot. It's not a true audit of your life. So you're gonna make resolutions and go back into 2026 or the next year and do the same thing because you haven't taken the time to audit where you are and what you've actually done. So, in that regard, we got to understand authority, but in order to understand authority, we need to understand what we're aligned with and what we shouldn't be aligned with. How often do you look at that? How often do you audit what you're aligned with? Who are you accountable to in order for you to do that effectively? Who sees your blind spots and can tell you about that and walk through it with you? That's why you need a coach or a mentor in your life if you don't have one. That's the reason why. Spend a week auditing your alignment with the decision that you've made over the past 30 to 60 days, the words you spoke out of your mouth to people, the things that you talked about in closed circles that maybe you didn't have to be talking about. Your posture as a leader. Where did you shrink back? Where did you step up and take some responsibility for some things? Look at those things, jot those things down, see what see what makes sense, see what you've done. Do an honest evaluation. Because at the end of the day, I that this is a promise I can make to you today that at some point in time, your work's gonna be evaluated. Your work's gonna be tested, it's gonna be tried by fire, and you really hope that your work was made with gold, silver, and precious stones and not wood, hay, and stubble. A time's gonna come when your work's gonna be evaluated. Are you ready for that? If I tell you I'm coming to your house on such and such a date, you're gonna clean up, get the house ready, ensure it smells good, clean up all the dirt and mess and all the stuff that's going on in your house when nobody's dare to visit, and you're gonna make it look like it's the best house ever, the cleanest house in the world. What if I popped up without any kind of warning? What would I see? That's where we are when it comes to getting aligned with the authority over us. We don't know when we're gonna be exposed. I think this is the year of exposure for a lot of people. We don't know when we're gonna be exposed. So I want to encourage you to get your house in order now. Don't wait until tomorrow. Don't wait until you think somebody's gonna visit. Get your house in order right now. You never know when you might have an inspection that you're not ready for. Wherever you are and however you're listening to the Inspiration Station and the Everyday Edge Podcast, thank you again for making us a part of your week. In the upper right-hand corner is a QR code. Use that to find all of our previous Inspiration Station episodes. Thank you again for watching and listening. If you are on Apple Podcasts, this is how you're hearing us, please drop a fire-star review and follow the show on Apple Podcasts. Whoever you enjoy your podcast, you can leave a review there as opposed to other places. Of course, our YouTube channel, youtube.com at theycallmeistery, be a great spot for you to check out all of our video episodes of the inspiration station. Much more to come. And you can subscribe to our channel there. We'd love you to do that as well. But beside that, if you have any comments or questions, drop them in the chat, drop them in the comment section, or shoot me a message on social media. I'd be happy to walk through some of these ideas that we expressed on the episode today. If you have any questions for me, happy to hear that. But thanks again for watching and listening to the Inspiration Station and your Everyday Edge podcast. I'm Mr. U. Thanks for making us part of your week.