Experience God's Presence
Become a servant leader
Make lifelong friends
Push beyond your limits
Thrive in the wild
hen we choose to follow Christ, there is a death in ourselves as His spirit floods in. Desires and affections are displaced when we say yes to His words and ways above our own. His is a kingdom that is full of upside-downs; brimming with binary opposites that oppose the unsanctified heart. Jesus says in His word that the first shall be last, and the last shall be first and that we must lose our lives in order to gain them. A call to leadership deepens this call to lay down our lives; for it includes a significant responsibility to seek the success of others. Our lives then become not only to serve our individual growth and goals but for the sake of others and advancement of the kingdom.
“A call to leadership deepens this call to lay down our lives; for it includes a significant responsibility to seek the success of others.”
The Lord has been using wilderness contexts for thousands of years to grow his leaders. Before He began public ministry, Jesus himself spent 40 days in the wilderness to be tested in His identity. In this time of refining preparation, there are traits and experiences that need to be instilled in us before we can lead well. Because of worldly examples of the misuse of leadership, we find it easy to lose a godly vantage point. Our own hearts battle for the applause of men, and to attract people to ourselves. Yet He is most attractive, humanity perfected and godliness manifested, and there is nothing we can provide to supplement His atoning work and glorious nature. We arise out of the wilderness, leaning on our Beloved, for He is our hope and desire.
Leadership is not loud. In fact, it is in quiet and in secret that the leader is melded. Leaders are built up by their time spent in the presence of God. Intimacy should precede ministry because we cannot represent someone we do not know and have not spent time with. In the stillness, we listen with soft ears to the voice of the Father, spending countless more hours before Him than before people. Out of this time before God arises the gentle confidence of quiet insisting: “follow me as I follow Christ”, for we lead by being led.
