Who's Leading Whom?

Regardless of who you are, where you are, what you do, or what you can or can’t do – you lead something. You may lead a team at work, your family, your kid(s), or something else. Please know this: choosing not to lead is a leadership decision. The reason there are so many books on the subject is because we are all leading.  When you lead, there are moments when you realize you are alone, and alone stinks. Funny thing is, with all of these leaders, lonely would seem unlikely. Lonely and leader go hand-in-hand, and being lonely is not only unlikely, it is unavoidable.

So I am basically saying that is: you lead, and you will experience times of lonely. What I am not saying is that we are then simply relegated to just “deal with it”. There is a way to ensure that lonely does not overtake your leadership or desire to do so.

The only way to overcome leadership lonely is to figure out whom you are following: you or someone else. In every leadership opportunity, whether it be for a single situation for yourself, or one regarding others, you have a choice. Identify yourself as the leader and take the glory (or the arrows if you make a mistake), or identify your leader (tell everyone who you are following). If you answer “you”, and we must all admit this is our default answer, then we can move on. More often, the only time we really admit or point out that someone else is leading is when we want to shift blame, right?

Following is a choice, leadership is a responsibility. We must all chose whom we will follow.

Joshua 24:15 (NIV)
“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

A life following Jesus is not one of slavery but freedom. We are free from our selfish desires and agendas, free to live as God designed us to live. And Jesus never gets us lost (that we do all on our own). That is why, if we as individuals, choose to follow Jesus, and let Jesus lead, we are never alone again.

…just sayin’

In His Grip,

Pastor Pat