Leading, Following and Changing the World

Acts 16:9-10 NIV
During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
http://bible.com/111/act.16.10.niv

What would it look like if we as church leaders followed the Spirit with this kind of sensitivity and obedience? And what would it look like if we as church members followed our church leadership with this kind of trust and humility?

Free Your Soul

You have to free yourself of the existing in order to grapple with the possibilities of the not yet.

Ability

Lord, leading this is well beyond my ability. Don’t let me stop at my ability.

Empowerment

Being in charge of/responsible for something is not the necessarily the same as leading it. In the separation of the two lies the key to true empowerment.

Press on

Have you ever started to do something new?  Something you’ve never done before?  Things seem to be going along well; things are clicking and sliding nicely.  Then you have an epiphany.  This realization suddenly and subtly becomes so clear that you don’t even flinch.  Somehow you’ve known this all along, but it just finally leaked from your unconscious to your consciousness.

“I have no idea what I’m doing.  I’m in way over my head.  People are coming to me and asking me questions, lots of questions.  I’m giving answers, but they’re simply my best guesses.”

Then you realize something even more… “No one else knows they’re guesses!  Everyone else takes these guesses as valid truth.  It’s as if I’m some sort of expert on the matter when in fact, I’ve never done this before in my life.  I’ve never even seen it done before!  I have no idea what I’m doing.”  And what’s more… there’s no way to tell if you’re on the right track, nothing to check yourself against or keep your eye on.  You’re alone, a cowboy riding through the rocky west desert… it’s just you following your instincts.  Hoping it’s God’s calling and leading instead of your own restless wild heart.

It’s a terrifying feeling and yet it’s so free! All you can do, your only choice of action, is to pray and keep going; pressing on till you meet the horizon or die trying.

I guess in the end I’d rather die a failure having tried my hand at every opportunity I saw; rather than be successful and having lived a safe long life, always staying in the boat.  I like boats and all, but I’ve always had more fun and somehow felt more at home when I’m outside of them.

Philippians 1:20 & 21 says, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

It is my life passage.  The more I go, the truer it rings… and the more I hope.  I love life.  At the end of the day, life is too short.  Not because it flies by and escapes us when we’re not paying attention, but because it’s too good to take it all in for what it’s worth.  “Life is short.  Play hard.”  Don’t look back.  You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  You’ve been over you head all your life.  The onyl difference is sometimes we realize it more than others.  God is always with us and whenever we ask… He’ll hold us.  Press on.  Press on.