Looking up!

  I was thinking the other day, as I am prone to do, more leadership thoughts and how I still cannot seem to wrap my head around being a leader....at least a leader like the ones in the popular books out there. I have nothing against the books I just feel different...and I know many of you do also.  Then as I thought and meditated on how God has called me to this role I saw the image in my mind of the person who would stand on a sidewalk and begin to look at something in the sky...real or imagined.  Then how others begin to look up to try to see what they are looking at...real or imagined...and how a crowd can form because one person stopped and looked up. In a weird way this person became a leader...others followed. It then dawned on me that this is how I lead...and why some will follow.  No, I don’t just stand around looking up at random things to get others to look up also.  But...I am looking...pursuing...going after...God...His ways and His stuff. And others will follow because they are looking...pursuing...going after...God...His stuff and His ways.

John Wimber used to talk about leadership and he would say that on many occasions he was not way out front leading and urging people to follow but he might be just a half step ahead of those following. He might not have all the answers but he had one or two more than the others did...so he lead. I see life with Jesus as a journey I am on...with others...so in some areas I am a step or two ahead and others who are on this journey follow along. I do know the destination is God and becoming like His Son but the journey takes us to many places we had not planned on going.  And every place...a hurt...some success...forms us and makes us.  

Barb and I love riding our motorcycle and we really love to ride with others...just more fun.  Also we like to stay off the highways and the roads that are bigger and quicker...and find roads where there is more beauty and adventure in the trip. Instead of being surrounded by cars and trucks in a hurry to get from point A to point B you get off to see what all is around you.  The small town that no one visits since the free way went through...the lakes and rivers that help make the roads wind.  The beauty of the journey...enjoyed instead of passed by.  Now it takes much longer to get from A to B but the journey forms memories and gives us places to go back to explore on another day.  We rode back from up in the middle of Michigan on a Saturday and what should have been a three and half hour trip turned into a ten or twelve hour trip...but we ate lunch on a beautiful beach...explored amazing sand dunes...had dinner at a quaint restaurant (food destinations are important to bikers:) and so much more. New experiences experienced together...the journey was so much more than just a trip to get home...it was an adventure.  Fun!

Now I am rambling...what I am trying to say here is that for some of us who lead, and there are many like me out there, well for some of us we realize we are on a journey...maybe we are even minding our own business just wandering through the countryside of life and before we know it...someone is following.  Not because we are the smartest (thought we might be), the tallest or best looking, the most powerful or most confident person around.  Mostly because we are heading some where. We are on a  beautiful journey towards a beautiful God...filled with discovery and awe.  It seems like every day there is a new discovery...a new leg of the journey...and others are coming along. I hear the Spirit say “Don’t fight it Bill...it really is not about you...it is about Me...and what they see in you is your desire to find me. Keep leading.”

Bill