Free At Last: Rediscovering The Instinct to Lead
I am sure it is going to take me a while to fully process my “conversion” experience on Thanksgiving Day. What I know for sure is that before that, I was a leader in chains. To dignify my bondage (which increased with each leadership conference I attended and each new leadership concept I internalized), I had even taken to calling myself “a student of leadership”. I am a free man now. Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty I have rediscovered the instinct to lead.
The practice of leadership has undoubtedly gained from the exchange of ideas at leadership conferences, and from the writings of some of our best thinkers on the subject of leadership. The phenomenal growth of annual leadership gatherings such as the Global Leadership Summit pioneered by Bill Hybels of the Willow Creek Association suggests a serious desire by leaders to know how to lead. Testimonials abound of many who have become better leaders today because of these conferences. While I have also benefited from these conferences and become a better student of leadership over the years, I believe I have also become sidetracked. While God expects me to be a life-long learner, He did not call me to be a student of leadership. God called me to lead.
Somehow, I had undergone this transmutation from a leader to a “student of leadership”. The more I knew, the less I was able to lead. I know now more than ever that it is critically important for a leader to know when he knows enough. Our inability to walk away from the veritable feast of ideas society places before us everyday causes us to be addicts rather than healthy leaders, and can have tragic consequences on our ability to effectively fulfill our calls. The addiction can cause us to lose our ability to trust our leadership instinct. Once that is gone, we lose the ability to call “God plays”, to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, to see that the surf is up so we can catch the wave of God opportunities.
I am free. I am free at last. Thank God Almighty I am free at last.
Bishop, I see you in the distance coming back to the reservation to find the rest of us still cocooned by our progressive ideas. You have always been out there(in a good way). Thank you for it. I have often commented that my own education has made me a prisoner to faithlessness, and inactivity. Thanks for the reminder that the challenge before us is to do, to be, and to become and not simply to learn about doing, being, and becoming.
I think you have just delivered me from a conference this year. Go figure, I have actually freed up some time to lead!
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I "happened" on to your website today and read this blog entry. WOW! You are probably number three in a series of "encounters" I have had in the past month that are too similar to be anything but God-directed. God is definitely trying to tell me something that I think is about the freedom to be the me He created me to be. Thank you. Thank God for you.
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