Leadership

Like all Americans I have been watching and listening to the political banter over the debt ceiling.  I am frustrated with the whole process.  Amidst all the maneuvering I keep hearing people talk about leadership.  I’ve heard them say so and so needs to step up and show some leadership.  What they are really saying is that someone needs to come up with a plan.

Is that what defines leadership?  Someone’s ability to come up with a plan?  Is leadership about who can scream the loudest or talk the longest?

Isn’t a leader defined by whether or not anyone is following them?  If you think you are leading but you look behind you and no one is following you, that is not leadership. 

It is not just an issue in Washington.  It is true for all of us.  Parents, if your children are not following you then you’re not really leading.  If people at work aren’t following you then there’s a problem with your leadership.  In some cases it is a problem with those who are supposed to be following but more often it is a failure to really lead.

Real leadership in Washington would be about getting people who are far apart in their thinking to sit down and work together to come up with a plan that is good for our nation.  Not a plan that is good for their polictial future.  Real leadershp is sacrificial.  Real leadership puts the interest of the whole ahead of any individual.  Real leadership sees the big picture.

I think the guys in Washington need to look around and see if anyone is really following.  I need to look around in the arenas where I lead and honestly ask, “Is anyone following me?”

Just some thoughts,

Jeff.

Energy

Peg and I (and Michael) just returned from a great vacation in the GA mountains.  We had a very restful time and came back refreshed and ready to get back to reaching our city for Jesus!

A few years ago my brother-in-law gave us a cooler for the car that plugs into a car outlet.  It has a fan and a motor that have to be running to keep everything cool but it is useless unless it is plugged into a power source.  The fan and motor have to do their work but they can’t work without energy.

I read a powerful verse in Colossians while I was away.  Paul is writing about all the work he is doing to point people to Jesus.  And then he shares this in Colossians 1:29, “To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.”

Paul says the energy source for all of his work is God.  He has work to do but the energy to do that work is God.  It struck me very deeply when I read that.  I am guilty of struggling through my “work” under my own power instead of the power of God.

Notice Paul says that the energy he gets from God is a powerful energy.  That same powerful energy is available to me and to you.  I just have to make sure I am plugged into the right energy source.  I want the power of God to work in my life.  I want the power of God to sustain my life.  I want the power of God to be my energy source.

So I am striving in my life to ask myself everyday…who is the source of your energy today?  Yourself or God?

Just some thoughts,

Jeff.