Free Purpose And Power Of Authority by Myles Munroe Page B

reconciliation and restoration.
Humanity Is Unauthorized to Change Itself
    Let’s consider how the Creator went about this reconciliation and restoration through the analogy of an authorized dealer versus an unauthorized dealer, which is similar to the designer versus imitation concept.
    Few people are more dangerous than an unauthorized dealer. Many of us have had the experience of taking a piece of equipment, an appliance, or a car to someone who didn’t know what he was doing. He claimed he could fix it, but we found out afterward that he was “experimenting” with our valuable possession. Why? He was unauthorized to deal with that specific device. He didn’t have either the authority as one connected with the company that made it or the innate ability to fix it.
    The Unauthorized Merely Experiment
    The unauthorized must experiment because they don’t have access to the original plans. They can have only a trial-and-error approach to repair. This is why, when they take apart your equipment, they can’t always put it back together again—or back the same way. Therefore, whenever you take a malfunctioning piece of equipment to someone who is not authorized, you walk away just hoping that everything will be fine. And if you’ve had a bad experience with a similar situation, your confidence level in the unauthorized can be even lower. Where there is no sense of authority, there is no confidence. In fact, an absence of authority produces confusion and even chaos.
    The effects of the unauthorized can be seen in a variety of realms of life. For example, have you ever been in a restaurant that is so well run that you never have to ask for refills on your water or coffee, your food comes in a timely manner, and the atmosphere is peaceful? The opposite experience is being in a restaurant where the serving staff seemed agitated and confused, your order isn’t taken correctly, other patrons are fidgeting around the hostess stand because they have been waiting for a long time to be seated, and the atmosphere is generally uneasy. That is the difference between an environment governed by authority—an authorized environment—and an environment where authority is absent—an unauthorized one.
    The value something holds for you often determines whether you will pay the cost to have an authorized dealer fix it. The dealer always seems to be more expensive, but it can also often be more secure. Why? The dealer is not experimenting. He has been authorized by the company to work on the product, and he has access to the company’s knowledge and experience in relation to it.
    The authorized can provide maximum performance, or function, while the unauthorized may only misuse and abuse valuable things. After sending something to be repaired and getting it back, have you ever said, “It was better before I sent it to be fixed”? It was bad, but it wasn’t as bad as it is now. What you had sent was at least working somewhat until an unauthorized person began to deal with it.
The Authorized Dealer
    To repair human authority, we need to return to the Authorized Dealer, not to any substitute. Think about your life as being a product of The Creator, Incorporated. He is our Manufacturer.
    If you’ve purchased products that have come with warranties, you may have noticed that manufacturers are very particular about authorization and the need to follow the instructions carefully. Someone gave me an audio device as a gift, and it came with a user’s manual. On the back of the manual was a card that read “Limited Warranty/Guarantee.” Most warranty and guarantee certificates are worded in a similar way. For example, a “Limited Warranty” often covers ninety days for labor and two years for parts. Within the first three months of your owning the product, if anything goes wrong, the manufacturer will fix it free of charge—at no cost for labor. For two years, if anything goes wrong, the manufacturer will replace any faulty or broken