Imaginary Authority

Everybody wants to be somebody’s boss! The relationship supervisor, the family CEO, the neighborhood consultant, the unsolicited life coach, and let’s not forget the spiritual director who claims to know what God has planned for everybody but themselves!

Some people will help you open a door and then stand in it like security. Others will give you advice, expect you to follow it, and catch an attitude when you don’t. Apparently, offering an opinion now comes with management privileges!

But who appointed you? Who gave you the authority to approve somebody else’s decisions, supervise their relationships, question their opportunities, and determine how their life should unfold? And when did your personal opinion become God’s official policy?

In Imaginary Authority, Bradley Nicole Triplett puts the spotlight on the people who have a little too much to say about somebody else’s business. With humor, biblical perspective, and candid observations about relationships, boundaries, and personal responsibility, this book examines what happens when helping turns into controlling and advice starts sounding like an order from corporate headquarters.

From people who confuse concern with control to those who use spiritual language to make their opinions sound like divine announcements, this book takes a closer look at the unofficial bosses who keep trying to run somebody else’s assignment.

And before anybody gets too comfortable pointing fingers, there’s a little something to consider: sometimes the person standing in the way is the very person holding the clipboard!

Because everybody has a role, but everybody was not hired to be the manager. You can be supportive without being controlling, share your opinion without expecting obedience, and believe in God without pretending to be His personal spokesperson for everybody else’s life.

So, if you’ve ever watched somebody conduct a full board meeting about a life they don’t have to live, this one might sound familiar.

The message is simple: You are not the boss of blessings, the supervisor of somebody else’s purpose, or the chairman of every committee formed to discuss another person’s business.

Somebody needs to collect their clipboard, cancel the unnecessary meeting, and let people live!