It’s a bit hard to describe…
A few weeks ago I started out the day with a clear sense that I was at the end of myself.
- I wasn’t desperate,
- or depressed,
- or disappointed.
I was confident. But…empty. At the end of myself.
The next few days would be big…
- A strategic collaboration with potential regional partners.
- A big Dream asking PLI to provide training and give it legs to run.
- Several meetings with alumni and friends to request their financial support.
I was confident…but a confidence not found in myself. It was like God wanted to crack my well-planned code with a:
“Let me Lead Today… Let me Go First.”
Left to myself, it’s not my norm. I prefer to trust in myself…thus I prefer to avoid risks any greater than what I can trust in myself to deliver. (Bad plan!)
For me, maybe not for you, my “Let Me Lead Today” leadership posture has been forged when…
- the Vision God places on my heart seems too impossible.
- adversity seems too overwhelming.
- the risk of failure–big time, everybody-can-see-it failure–seems too imminent.
A new season has emerged for leaders (or it’s probably always been there) where competence and capability must be equally matched with an ever humbled end of myself, “Let Me Lead” … “Let me go first,” that can trust in the unplannable wind of the Spirit to enliven or redirect the best of our plans.
Certainly Gail and I and the team had been going hard the last few months.
- Teams and training settled for nearly 250 PLI participants in a narrow post-Easter window.
- A new grandchild. The first grandchild. Yes, thank you Lord!
- The usual organizational demands of leadership that this audience understands too well.
“Let me Go First! Let me Lead!”
It’s even difficult to risk explaining here. It’s always been harder for me to risk this type of posture when…
- a church member is eager to find fault or trumpet my shortcomings.
- family finances demand more “out go” than “in come.”
- congregational pruning affords no chart “up and to the right” to boast and the fruitful season of harvest seems a wispy far off dream.
PLI sees on the horizon more and more vibrant communities of faith scattering across the U.S. landscape, with ever deeper relationships having wider and wider influence in neighborhoods and towns so that Jesus might be represented to a people that knows not His love.
But, it necessitates that those communities be guided by godly, deeply formed leaders who confidently and boldly assert a posture that welcomes,
“Let Me Lead Today! Let Me Go First!”
It’s in that spirit that God can give voice to the scope of His vision in each of our communities and surprisingly give life to that vision!
Rev. Dr. Jock Ficken
