FOLLOW THE LEADER!

Do you ever remember playing that game. It used to be one of my favorites and of course I usually blindfolded my followers and of course when they blindfolded me, I usually peeked. Lol.... But when I think about it now, I know I didn't even understand really what follow the leader meant. It was just a game...it held no real meaning for me. But now, leadership means alot to me.

All of us are either leading or following someone or something. That is something to think about. We need faithful, ethical and effective leaders, without them we tend to wander. When our leaders aren't living up to their obligations, they set an example and we tend to follow those examples or think it's okay to do this or that.

Even as a parent, I am leading. I am not proud of all the examples I have set. I wish I could say I am the perfect parent, the perfect leader, but I am not. The choices I made told my children it was ok to do this or that, when in reality, I failed to lead in the way God would have me lead. I know there is no such thing as perfection, but I am daily renewing my committment to lead, to follow, to obey, to submit my will to Him. Sometimes I did it right thankfully. I was willing to submit to God's leadership and obey His voice and when I did, there was victory!

I look around me in the world I live in and I have noticed great leaders are rare. Men and women are being appointed or elected to positions of leadership, and they falter or fail to act. Others like Sadaam have abused or are abusing their power to satisfy their egos, crushing their subjects and squandering their resources. I mean how many palaces does one man need anyway. That is what I would call truly being self absorbed, thinking of me, my, myself and I, us four and no more.

Being in the ministry has afforded me the opportunity to learn first hand what it means to be a leader and the responsibility of that position. One of the best tests of my leadership is in replacing myself, training someone else to take my position in the event I am unable to continue. I and you are a part of God's chain of ongoing work in the world, we are modeling ourselves after another and others are patterning our lives after us. Thankfully we have a wonderful Pastor who truly I feel tries to model himself after Christ. I recently became even more thankful that we have him as a leader, he studies the Word and knows the Word. You can quote him a verse out of certain books of the bible, such as Romans and he can quote you the verse before it and after it. So right now he leads as our Pastor and we follow.

Anyway, on to what is happening in our life right now. Recently my husband and I decided it was time to take a break, so we are taking three months off from the boys Ranch. Thankfully we were able to do so, because we have trained our followers to be leaders and we can take off and know the ministry is in good hands.

We still have two boys at home whom we are leading and ministering to, but the rest of the time we are putting ourselves before the Lord, we are immersing ourselves in His Word and prayer and asking for His direction. He is answering, I have been in a time of refreshing and He is pouring into me, I hear His voice and it has been so good. I seem to have this unquenchable thirst for the Word. If I leave my bible in the car, I can't sit there and not go get it, I have to go get it, I have such a desire right now, just to be still and sit at His feet. I needed this time, to be alone with my Creator. I want to not only be a good follower, I also want to be a good leader and I have to be willing to submit in both cases.

Thanks to all of you who read my blog and who encourage me, I hope in some way I encourage you too.