God Follower

Sometimes the pictures of leadership appear in the most unlikely places. This last week I encountered a young teenage girl and she would remind me of one of those great leadership truths.

She was from a religiously active conservative family. She was raised to be a faithful God follower. But she found herself in a horrible situation. She was faced with an unwanted pregnancy. She was in a committed relationship with someone and she was certain the baby wasn’t his.

As you can imagine she was struggling with all the questions anyone in that circumstance would struggle with.

• What would her parents say?
  
• What would they do?
  
• How would she tell the young man who she had committed her heart to?
  
• What would he do?
  
• Should she just run away?
  
• Should she seek a way to end the pregnancy?
  
• If she gave birth to the baby how would she care for the child?

In the midst of this struggle she shares the most profound statement.

“I am a God follower, and I will accept whatever He wants in this.”

In the ugliest of situations every leader, every true leader knows two truths.

1. Who they are – “I am a God follower.”
2. What God expects – “I will accept whatever He wants.”

That’s who I aspire to be, a God follower willing to accept whatever He wants.

Want to hear the rest of this young woman’s story? Read it for yourself. It begins in Luke 1:26.

The Man in the Window
A God follower willing to accept whatever God wants.

What are you living?

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But today in my own devotional time I was overwhelmed with the description of a leader. During the day of the return from exile, the days of rebuilding, the days of busyness, during the days of challenge, Ezra is arrives on the scene in Jerusalem. He is described this way.


Ezra . . . the gracious hand of his God was on him. This was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to teach those laws and regulations to the people of Israel.
Ezra 7:8,10

Those were his qualifications; the cover letter introducing him as leader. This guy experiences the continual grace of God. He's cultivated it by studying the law inside and out, but he hasn't just studied it, it has become a part of him. He obeys it at every point. He is committed to teaching what he has learned to all the people.

I know that when I am with other leaders I often ask, what are you reading? Lorrits? McNeall? Maxwell? I am always looking for clues to what God is doing in their lives, their ministries.

Maybe the better question to ask is, what are you living?

Jesus Chooses the Twelve

Mark 3:16-19
These are the names of the twelve he chose:

Simon (he renamed Peter),
James and John (the sons of Zebedee, but Jesus nicknamed them "sons of Thunder),
Andrew,
Phillip,
Bartholomew,
Matthew,
Thomas,
James (Son of Alphaeus),
Thaddeaus,
Simon (the Zealot),
Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him).

It's just the list of names of the twelve. Wrong. Six of the twelve are differentiated by an annotation following their names. A footnote if you will to help us understand who they are. Some of the footnotes are helpful and gracious. Simon, the common man so profoundly remodeled by the Carpenter he gets a new name--Peter. He is different from Simon, the man who can never let it go. The man enthusiastically committed to everything it means to be a Jew. One of the footnotes is rather simple, just a family name added so he can't be confused with another--James, the Son of Alphaeus.

The list of names I have read many times before, but today the weight of two of the footnotes hit me. James and John are called not just the sons of Zebedee, but the "sons of thunder." Ouch! Sons of Thunder! Imagine being remembered as two men who were often quick to speak and maybe slow to think. Or perhaps it's a reference to all the times they stuck their foot in their mouths in one of Jesus discussions. Perhaps it is a reference to their untamed, unedified character--bulls in pottery shops throughout Galilee and Capernaum. What instance birthed the moniker? What personality traits led to the nickname? It's unclear, but it was true that they are remembered by the footnote.

Then there is Judas Iscariot. Did we really need the footnote? There is only one Judas? And we know his family name? Was it needed to include the parenthetical (who later betrayed him)?

Then it hit me, we have little control over the addition of footnotes. They will just be added to our lives. Some will be descriptive. Some will be kind. Some may be gracious. But we need to realize that some might be reminders of weak character, or our biggest failure.

Some footnotes could be infamous like:

OJ (the guy who likely killed his wife)
Mark McGuire (the guy who juiced his way into the record books)
Michael Vick (the guy who went to prison for Dog fighting)
Jimmy Swaggart (the televangelist who frequented hookers)
Some could be just as defeating:

John (the liar),
Bob (the loud one),
Bill (the immoral),
Jana (the one who walked away from God),
Carol (the pew sitter)
Tina (the judgmental)
Dave (the adulterer),
It got me thinking. What footnotes will be written to describe my life?