It has been a long, long dry spell. We haven’t had relief in a long, long time. Everywhere you look, in all faucets of life, things are drying up. Rivers and lakes are symbols of current leadership. we look everywhere for relief, and up till now, none can be found.

If you are like me, you are probably as worried about our future as you have ever been. I feel as though there is no real direction in the way we are being led. The “bipartisan effort” does not exist, and in fact, has become an oxymoron. It’s a fight for power, not answers. It’s an effort to prove the other guy wrong, not accept the situation and do something about it.

Leaders don’t and can’t have a victim mentality. Elected leaders are put into their positions to be servants of the people, to act on their behalf to do what is right, and to do it in a way that creates not a void of leadership, but an example. To continue blaming one party or the other takes the fingers off the pencil and instead points them in other directions. This is not a blame game. This is not a high-stakes poker game. This is the greatest country in the world that has and is being run down into bad late-night talk show fodder.

I pray for the wisdom of our “leaders.” I pray that a true leader would emerge at a time like this and show us what it is supposed to look like. The time is right. This leader needs to emerge with sleeves rolled up, head high, and thumb pointed at his chest. This leader has a task that very few will have faced or will ever face. But, that’s why you are a leader. You fix problems. Whether you are answering to the board, the stockholders, or the American people, you fill that position to get the job done.

Or you are replaced.

It’s that time. Pray for that leader to come forward. Pray that this phoenix rises from the ashes of fallen leaders. Pray for wisdom.

“Where there is no leadership the people fall, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”(Proverbs 11:14)

“Leadership is action, not position.”
Donald McGannon

“One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.”
Arnold Glasgow

“Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call to self-importance.”
J. Donald Walters

“True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders.”
Robert Townsend

“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”
John C. Maxwell

Category: Stand Up
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This morning when I looked out the window, the rain that I had been worried about had already beat me to the punch. It was already present, and I was still rubbing my eyes from a heavy sleep. For a few days I had been expecting it. I knew there was nothing I could do about it, but at the same time, I was hoping it wouldn’t come. I needed to work, and I can’t do that if it is raining. So, this morning, as I watched the drops fall, oddly, I wasn’t upset. I had a new perspective.

There a lot of things in this world that I can’t do anything about. There are a lot of things that I can worry about, dread, or even be scared. Here’s what I have figured out; it doesn’t matter if I fret about them.  My job is not to try to prevent the improbable or the inevitable, but to be prepared for them. I’m not supposed to worry-I’m supposed to prepare.

There are things that have already been placed in front of me that I have been preparing for in my past. It is amazing to see! Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” I can look back now and see the things that God used to prepare me for the things that are here now. While I didn’t understand it at the time, what an amazing testimony it is to see how God moves.

I can see the abilities He has given me to use for Him. We all have those gifts. Ephesians 4:12 says He gave gifts “to prepare God’s people for works of service.”  I think that is helpful to me because now, as I see things that I can not do anything about, it hits me differently. My situation, my circumstance, my condition, isn’t about just a trial. It isn’t just a season in life. It’s about who I become after it. God isn’t worried about my comfort, He is more concerned about who I am becoming. He wants to fashion me after His Son. And the more I pray for that, the more He will work to do it.

I know this is all for a reason. God has a plan. I don’t see it. I can’t see it. I see the right now. I live in a microwave world. God sees the bigger picture, and He is doing something. I just continue to pray that He will use me.

1 Corinthians 2:9 says this,

“However, as it is written: 
‘No eye has seen, 
no ear has heard, 
no mind has conceived 
what God has prepared for those who love him.’ ”

That promise is what makes the difference in me worry about the future and what I see coming, and knowing that God is preparing me. It is what makes the difference in my life and knowing there’s a plan.

It’s what makes me not worry about the storm and instead enjoy watching it rain.

Category: Stand Up
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