a leader

I’ve concluded as of late that it is a serious thing to call yourself a leader of people and to assume any kind of position of this nature should never be taken lightly. This sort of comes to my mind today as I’ve been reading about the life of Moses and Aaron lately. The constant pressure on these two souls is hard to fully imagine. Yet that is exactly what God was calling them to do; to endure so that others might live: to bear their burden. As they do so I’m seeing more and more this important truth; that being, God’s doing more in the individual(s) than He is in the mission; that getting things done or accomplishing the mission is almost secondary to how he shapes the heart and soul of the one He calls to serve. So as I’m admiring these guys I come to this statement:

¹² But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

So the situation here is that Moses was suppose to verbally tell water to come out of a rock; that was the plan God gave Moses. Instead of telling water to come out of a rock, Moses struck it with his staff. In truthfulness, I can see why Moses probably used the staff. I mean it’s his sword; it’s the very tool he’s used to conquer Pharaoh; the man parted the Red Sea with the dang thing. So somehow because he didn’t do it the exact way God said to actually accomplish the task, Moses and Aaron don’t get to enter the promise land with Israel. I get that leaders should take seriously God’s plans and I totally agree with the thought that if one does not trust and obey God then God cannot use that individual fully in the end. But no one’s ever explained to me the form of  trust God was after: “to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites.”

Moses’ failure is not that he did not accomplish the task. The task was achieved. The goal was accomplished: water came out of the rock. In fact, it was gushing. All that God was providing was actually overflowing. So Moses and Aaron as leaders did get things done. The problem was that Moses did not declare the point; he did not show that in his goal God was/is holy—unique or separate. In other words, in the minds of God’s people God was not the reason for that miracle. Moses was and because no glory was given to the God who is unique and above all things, God was completely ignored in the matter.

To ignore God in making decisions or even accomplishing tasks out of human effort on behalf of God for His people is to make the mission more important than God who accomplishes it. Mission, then, can so easily become our god. And to me that is the greater lesson to Moses and Aaron. You must ask how this accomplishes the task on behalf of God the most so that it reveals Him as unique or separately higher. This is what God holds his leaders accountable for; not the result but how that leads the leader and so His people to an adoration of God. All leaders, then, have the propensity to dishonor God in divinely inspired plans by not placing him first in each matter.

Seems to me that everyone is in some sort of position to lead. You could be a parent. You could be a professor or a school teacher that handles a classroom. You could be a manager or a trainer of a department. Perhaps, you’re a business owner with multiple employees. You might be a lay leader or elder in your place of worship or even a paid pastor. Whatever it is that you lead, the challenging principle is that God is not just interested in the end result as much as he is in how uses you to lead a people who need to understand God for his true splendor.

So all this is to just say that I’m no where near the leader God wants me to be but at least I know that seriousness in calling myself one. Praying that I learn how to lead as one who honors God as holy before his people.