Leadership Development

I've been reading The Priest by Francine Rivers (she's one of the best Christian Fiction writers that I've ever read) and it's having a pretty profound impact on me. I've never really thought about the way that Moses and Aaron would have felt when they were delivering plague messages to pharaoh. I've always sensed that they would have felt very powerful - seeing God act in incredible ways and using them as His mouthpieces. What this book has done for me is reminded me of the fact that the people of Israel didn't except leadership too well. When Pharaoh gets mad and forces them to continue to work making bricks, only with no straw, they get quite angry with Aaron and Moses.

"May the LORD look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us." (Ex.
5:21)

The realization that hit me is that Moses and Aaron had to continue to follow God's leading even when the people were sure that what they were doing was only making life worse for them.

Big truth - Often God brings pain to the life of the leader to help develop the leader. He works on multiple levels at all times. God's purpose was to free His people from Egypt, but he was also developing Aaron and Moses into better leaders - men who could stand for God when all around them people disagreed with what they were doing.

This pain of leadership development is vitally important...but not a lot fun. For the first time in my short pastoral career of 6 years I know that there are people who disagree with me on the direction of our church. And they sit there every Sunday while I lay my heart out to them as I preach. (Lest you think I'm saying that "they are wrong and I am right" - that's not how I feel. I make mistakes like everyone else. I'm just realizing that often no matter what you do you will be misunderstood.) I've found recently that preaching, which was always something that I have loved to do, has become more difficult. I'm not as anxious to "get up there and share" as I used to be. Sometimes I feel a bit gunshy. I told God about it and He has challenged me a bit. I think He is forcing me to realize that preaching is not a lovefest (where everyone agrees, or loves what you have to say, or even likes you), but it is an opportunity to speak from Scripture regardless of the response of or acceptance by people. That's a difficult lesson to learn.

God is shaping me by success and failure - by pain and joy. It's just refreshing to see the same thing happening in the lives of Aaron and Moses.