Called To Abide

When my husband Josh proposed, he whisked me away and drove us three hundred miles to Cornwall. Along the way, however, the car died! Somehow, we still managed to reach our destination and once we arrived, all was soon forgotten when Josh took me to a beautiful lake and proposed. Everything was wonderful, until later, when we remembered the car: how on earth were we going to make it back when we were in the middle of no-where?!

At first we scrambled to solve the problem ourselves, searching endlessly through taxi numbers, train tickets and car-hire websites. Knowing the financial hit the problem would make, we quickly felt overwhelmed.

But, in the momentary chaos, we decided to pray, inviting God into the problem and putting our self reliance aside. And suddenly, the overwhelm shifted and although the problem still existed, we experienced peace. Shortly afterwards, we were gifted some money, safely and miraculously drove the car to be scrapped and found a car hire that would take us back home. What surprised me the most was that once we had prayed, the solution unfolded with ease.

As a leader, there is no doubt that we face and will face many problems, but, how we respond to these problems is far greater than the solutions themselves. Every problem we encounter tempts us to scramble for our own solutions, but, as Christians, we are not called to do life apart from God, we are called to do life connected to Him:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who abides in me while I abide in him produces much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

This exhortation extends to every area of our lives, including our leadership. In our leadership, we are invited to stay connected and dependent, just like a branch to its vine. As we learn to further lean on Him, we will see our striving turn to quiet trust, our overwhelm turn to unshakeable peace and although the challenges in our leadership may still exist, we will experience a grace that carries us through.

As many of us take a pause over the summer, why not take this opportunity to reflect on your leadership from the year so far, and for the new term to come.

Do you recognise the temptation to lead in your own strength? Why not take a moment to repent, pull on His empowering grace to lead you forwards and when you are ready, respond again to His invitation to lean instead on Him.