25 Years of Leadership Experience Has Taught Me This ...
I have the most stunning emerging leaders in my world. It is my great honour to come alongside them as they navigate the high cost of serving God and loving people, OR serving people and loving God
Because it really is both.
I have said for years, I believe in leadership the greatest lesson that we can learn, is that life is not just about you, but it is about you, but it is not just about you.
This is the paradox of servanthood and spending your life on Kingdom Come.
One of the choices that I watch people have to make is where they position themselves when they feel like they are 'missing out' or 'not enough' or 'overlooked'. This lie can spiral you into deep darkness.
My experience has taught me .. ask God again where is He at work, what is breaking His heart, what is moving His hand, where does He lead people ...and get focussed there.
The best thing that you can do when you feel 'left out of the orbit of God's care and concern' is to serve another! Go be where He is.
Song of Songs 1:6
Tell me where you're working —One whom my soul loves — Tell me where you're tending your flocks, where you let them rest at noontime. Why should I be the one left out, outside the orbit of your tender care?
Ask God where is He working? What is His agenda? It probably NOT on the comparision trap of scrolling social media.
She knows the power of living where God is moving and being a part of His Cause instead of just worrying about her own life and it's meaning.
When you take your eyes off your own lack, and get it onto serving others, honestly, something awakens.
Perspective.
Purpose.
Pathways to a bright future.
Because everytime I get my eyes off myself and onto where He is at work, the costliness of it may not diminish, but the restraints of this vision arouse my 'why' and all of a sudden, everything shifts..
Welcome to the last five years of my life, where often I have counted the cost, questioned the price my family is paying and wondering is the pioneering mantle too much. I have second guessed it every time we contend for my girls, wondering of the long term risks associated with all the ways professionals will tell me this move to Quebec is affecting them in a traumatic way. And they want to highlight ‘missionary kids with PTSD’ and all the challenges that come with cross-cultural pioneering. Right in front of their faces in a doctors surgery!! And don’t get me wrong. I love my doctors. And I do listen, take note and get help where we need it.
But what is the alternative? Go the easy route? Move to somewhere less challenging? (Everywhere has chalenges.. life has challenges). Pull out of leadership altogether? Go the safe route? Quebec is the word God gave us, planting a church was His commission and He has not said another. This is where He is working. So I choose here .. again and again. And I love it, because I love God and people... anywhere and everywhere.
I know with all my soul, we are NOT being left out of the orbit of HIs care. We are right in the centre of where He is at work. I matter deeply to Him, my girls matter, my husband matters, the people of Quebec matter. So it becomes once again, about me and not about me.
Now my teens are learning this.
This is where resilience is nurtured.
This is where they see adults model faithfulness, consistency, showing up and not giving up.
So this is where promise is.
This is my honour.
Oh and let me highlight one last thing ..
The big key ..
The woman in Song of Songs has this whole conversation with the 'One whom my soul LOVES'
It really does stay simple if we remind our soul that we LOVE Him and this is all for Him, through Him, because of Him and with Him.
That my soul knows well.