Skip to main content

Leadership and God

Nancy Ortberg is speaking on leadership on Thursday morning at Orange 2010 and has made a statement that I paraphrase here: "If we want people to move from poor to great, we have to be OK with them going through the messy steps between poor and great." Good observation but it isn't limited to leadership. It is just as valid within the Christian life. Too many of us suffer from the idea – even if it isn't directly stated – that we have to "be the best we can be" all the time or God leaves us. Some believe that if we "grieve the Holy Spirit," the Spirit leaves us and so we perceive our salvation and position with God as something that ebbs and flows if not comes and goes as we fail and then perform for the Creator.

Of course this is not the case as a bit of reflection will reveal. Paul urges us to "be transformed; to become like God." The use of "become" implies – no, demands – a process. A process then implies that we, even though with God, are still un-transformed and un-God like as we travel from immature to mature images of God. We are imperfect and God knows that; He does not expect perfection per se at any given moment. We are saved by the blood of Jesus not whether or not we ever mess things up.

Our God personifies Nancy's leadership principle, but as something much more personal and broad than simple leadership. If God died for us "while we were yet sinners," His patience continues to provide the grace space for us to learn, to fail, to be lifted up again on our journey into the Image in which we were made. Neither God nor His Spirit come and go as we stumble along; God has never behaved that way. In fact, when He sent Israel into exile, God went with them to Babylon. He did not abandon them. It is OK that we fail from time to time in our pursuit of the life we have been made to live.

God expects it; He knows you; His love extends His grace and patience in our failures.

Rest in that today and in the future when tempted to kick yourself or perform a bit better to make up for your failings.

Comments

  1. Rosslyn ElliottMay 5, 2010, 11:03:00 PM

    Interesting. What about Psalm 51:11, which someone discusses in that context here: http://www.daleameyer.com/Take%20Not%20Thy%20Holy%20Spirit%20from%20Me.pdf

    I wonder what you think about the HS and churches? Do you think the HS will turn His back on a church, or is it always the church who turns its back on the HS? God turns his face from the Israelites a number of times in scripture.

    I don't hold a solid opinion on these issues yet, which is why I like to discuss them. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. H. Edmond RobersonMay 7, 2010, 4:18:00 PM

    Hi Rosslyn!

    I tried to reply to your comment but ended up with about 1000 extra characters. So, instead of trying to pare the response by the requisite characters, I elected to simply post a follow-on entry, Leadership and God II.

    Thanks for reading these things and making observations - they help me clarify what I think.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wineskins II

       In chapter 16 of Matthew, Peter ‘makes the great confession’ - Jesus he says is the Son of the Living God. At Covenant, when someone wants to become a member or to be baptized, we ask them who Jesus is and we expect this response. Peter is correct when he says this, but it is not clear that Peter (or the other disciples) understood the ramifications of his statement. Following Peter’s statement we find a series of incidents that make us wonder just how much Peters actually believed what he had said.      In the first instance, Jesus compares Peter to Satan. Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem and there he will die. Peter exclaims that he will not let that happen; Jesus will not be killed. Peter is expecting great things from Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God on behalf of Israel and he cannot fit Jesus dying into his hope for a greater Israel under this Messiah. This cannot happen, he reasons. Jesus’s response is a harsh re...
Post a Comment
Read more

Freewheeling

Merton never disappoints. Here's an excerpt from "Love and Living," a collection of individual writings collected after his death in 1968: "Life consists in learning to live on one's own, spontaneous, freewheeling; to do this one must recognize what is one's own—be familiar and at home with oneself. This means basically learning who one is, and learning what one has to offer to the contemporary world, and then learning how to make that offering valid." This short passage is pregnant with meaning and spiritual insight (would we expect anything less?). Let's start with the last few words: "…make that offering valid." The offering of ourselves, of our lives is our calling. We offer ourselves to assist the re-creation of Creation; the reconciling of Man to God. The validity of our offering is measured in how closely we mirror the work of God; to what extent our motivations are based on knowing who we are rather than a slavish obedience to p...
4 comments
Read more

Wineskins

  Jesus comes from the Wilderness where the Spirit has driven him for testing, announcing the imminent coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. His message to the crowds calls them to repent because the “Kingdom is at hand.” The kingdom or the effective rule of God has come upon Israel and Israel’s expected response is to return to her God. A number of passages tell us the sorts of things God has against Israel or at least her leaders. They have the form of the People of God, but not the substance. He will call those opposed to him “white-washed tombs” to describe their religious and moral corruption. They look good but are dead. He calls these people to repentance, to return to “their first love,” to actually live as though they are the People of God. In another place, he will tell them that while they do well to tithe mint and cumin, they have missed the larger point of caring for people. In the judgment scene, he describes sending into a place of gnashing of teeth those who failed to gi...
Post a Comment
Read more