Our challenges are not isolated just to our ministry here in the village. The Lord uses our different roles and responsibilities to mold and shape us. Being involved on the leadership team for the field of South East Africa is one of those challenges.
One of our mission leaders shared something in a conference a few years ago. He was talking about leadership and reminding us that we who are leaders are still sheep. We might be responsible to lead others but we are still sheep ourselves. We are sheep leading sheep. He was trying to help us realize that it isn’t because we are somehow special that we are put in a position of leading others. The main qualification for being a spiritual leader is to be more aware than the average person of our own inadequacies. The thing that qualifies us to lead is that we look to Him for His leading. We are nothing in ourselves.
I confess that in recent days I have been very discouraged. Most of my discouragement is related to my role as a mission leader. We have always been a young and inexperienced group of leaders but sometimes our youth and inexperience, and particularly my own, is more obvious than at other times.
Naturally, I would like to think that I am growing and developing as a leader. When one gets feedback that suggests the opposite, I, for my part, find such revelations discouraging. As I have been bringing these things to the Lord in recent days He has been reminding me that my focus is wrong. I shouldn’t be worried about being known as a good server of men. I should be worried about being a good follower of God. By being a good follower of Him, He will make me a good server of men. I am just a sheep myself. I need to worry about following the Shepherd. Age doesn’t qualify me in and of itself. Experience doesn’t qualify me in and of itself. He qualifies me to serve others when I am following Him.
Please pray for me, and for the leadership team here on the field. Pray that we will be learning and growing in our walk with God. Pray that we will be following and learning from the Shepherd. He is the only one who can balance the grace and the truth that is needed when serving others. He is the only one who can turn weaknesses into strengths. His is a life of service. Pray that we make ourselves available to Him for Him to live His life out through us.