Leadership

My senior year has been an adventurous one so far. I have been bestowed a wonderful gift of being a leader of a small group. I have been given a gift of desire for my own future. I have been blessed with an amazing man who I get to marry. Never would I have imagined that God would remember me so many times. It wasn’t easy throughout and it still isn’t but there have been many thing and experiences I have learned so far especially with leadership.

                  A very wise woman once told me that being in leadership is one of THE most humbling positions in life and she couldn’t be more right. I have learned a lot over the past few months and I know I will continue to learn more. God has given me certain words and lessons to take me to the next level with him. Let me share them with you.

• ·       My role
• ·       Compassion
• ·       Equip

God has and continuously teaches me a lot because I fail so much. I constantly need to be reminded that I need him each day more and more. Let me start off my saying that being a leader to me is about allowing God to use me in whatever way that means. In the beginning of the year I was so scared of what my role needed to be and how I should be acting. Or if I hurt people’s feelings because of my bluntness or whether girls would even listen. From then to now I have to be continuously reminded of a few things. One would be that my role is to make God look cool, that is it. I am here to do what He tells me to do. Through that He has given me a lot of hard lessons to speak on to the girls like purity, friendship or just trusting God. It has been an amazing gift! I still get concerned with ‘well what if they don’t listen when they need to hear what God is trying to say in the Bible.’ I still get very frustrated with this sometimes but then I have to remember I am just here to do what God says and He will take care of the rest. In Mark 4:1-9 it talks about words falling on deaf hears or hears that will hear.

“Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land.  And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them:  “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.  Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil.  And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.  Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”  And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Mark 4:1-9

So basically God will open the ears of the people who need to hear and who are ready to hear. This then leads me to my next word, which is compassion. For the ones that do not hear I as a leader need to have compassion on them like Jesus had compassion on people and how God has compassion on me.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” Colossians 3:12-13

                  As a leader I am learning to have compassion on those who do not understand God and His ways. Not that I always do either because I don’t at all. But as a leader in those moments of misunderstanding I need to be compassionate on them and not get frustrated because God does not get frustrated with me. This is one that I am still learning about and dealing with.

                 

                  Having compassion on people also leads me to being equipped. Whatever trials I have faced or going to face will equip me for whatever I face in the future.

“Equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”  Hebrews 13:21

This means that the purpose of this equipping is that God’s will might be done. That my experiences might be used for God’s glory and to help others.

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.” Genesis 50:20

Throughout this leadership experience I am still learning about how God uses me and the characteristics He wants to acquire. I am beginning to be ready and equipped for the new adventures God wants me to be on.

In Him.