God's Megaphone: Unashamed People

God’s been speaking to me a lot about leadership, and the importance of the negative side as well as the positive. There are always things that people in leadership positions never want to do, things they don’t enjoy doing, things that they don’t get seen doing or get credit for doing…

God’s been talking to me about the importance of setting aside time to spend with Him, not only praying in tongues, but reading the Bible with devotion (i.e. a literal devotional), worshipping, and simply confessing. It’s easy for everyone to say that they’ll set aside time to do that once they are placed into a leadership role, and it’s so easy to say because we all see a lot of people get promoted into jobs they aren’t ready for, and the bitter fruit of that goes on display eventually. Always.

It’s easy to say that God knows our hearts, that’s ‘elementary’ to the biblical scholars we run into at churches across America every Sunday, but the truth is…God really DOES know our hearts, and He lives in the future as much as He lives with us in the present. He knows whether or not we’re truly ready for the ministry He’s trying to keep reserved for us, and if we aren’t, then He won’t promote us. Simple as that. We can’t sneak one by God the same way we can pull a fast one on our boss or parent; as if we can get more privileges or something if we simply act better in front of them. God’s just not as dumb as them.

I’ve been needing to set aside more time to spend with Him just because it’s what I need to do for the ministry I want to have. Why would God promote me if, down the line some ten, twenty, maybe thirty years, I just buckle under the pressure of seduction, finances, or whatever else, and all this ministry that’s supposed to be representative of God is no longer anything but a pile of trash, to be sneered at by people looking for an excuse to disprove the existence of God. Society has enough of that ammunition already, it’s time for something to change.

Is it so hard to believe that God won’t promote us until we’re ready, regardless of what we see in ourselves or what we tell ourselves? Several different avenues of media have trained us to only inspect one side of most any given story, or to jump to a conclusion way too prematurely based on subjective evidence presented to us. Do you not usually feel drawn to the protagonist in the movies and a sense of dread toward the antagonist? Do we not usually try to identify ourselves with the good guy of the story? Pretend we see ourselves up there in that noble role? Most movies only show the glamorous or interesting parts of people’s lives, and then skip the trivial things. If a movie were made about Dave, Gary, Tim, Alan, or any other minister that we allow to invest in our lives that actually spends time with God, how would the amount of time they spend in prayer be portrayed on the big screen? Could it be? It’s something that just can’t be all that interesting to watch because it’s not something we ‘connect’ with. It’s a time between the person and God, and God…as invisible as He is, can be difficult to cast in a movie.

More and more, God’s been showing me the influence that media has in developing the way people think, and how we have been disciplined to expect things at no real cost to ourselves, and then we get offended over the stupidest little thing.

Example: I was working at Sam’s Club as a cashier. We get a lot of restaurants coming through to pick up supplies and such, and this one dude is thinking he stands head and shoulders above everyone else, but he forgot something and had to go run and get it. I moved his stuff out of the way so he wouldn’t hold anyone else up, and then he came back and got offended that I had so inconvenienced him. Then when he collected himself, he came back into my line and refused to get anything in his cart out for me to ring up, he just…expected me to baby him since I had hurt his feelings. I tried to throw a fit, but there isn’t much you can do if you still want to keep your job, right? So what I did was used social networking sites and restaurant finders to discredit his business since he was being such a jerk about it. Yeah, I kinda feel bad about doing it because it’s not exactly Christlike, but hey…at least I know how much pride I still have yet to deal with, right?

For the last few weeks especially, God’s been working with me on becoming more easygoing and not taking things so personally. It’s easy to say that a lot of it is His grace because I don’t eve think I put a whole lot of effort into it, but I can see a drastic difference in the way I think, act, and deal with people. It’s been amazing, and I actually just feel so much better about life instead of dreading the thought of having to go to work and dealing with selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, thoughtless dolts that can’t comprehend the idea of stepping outside their own little circle to see how much inconvenience they cause other people, I look forward to the opportunity to exercise this newfound freedom in the love of God that I have managed to take one step further in. Now…I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But of course I still have a choice word slip out of my mouth, or an exceedingly unkind thought cross my mind every once in a while, but it’s becoming so much easier to dismiss now.

Which is what gave God the ability to take me into this next phase of what I need to work on…the issue of exercising leadership traits when no one else is around. How else can someone be a true leader if they’re something else behind closed doors? None of us wants to be the person that makes a big deal about God to the world and then embarrasses Him, themselves, and their families in front of nations; but…the sacrifices necessary to endure the long run are usually what get people to kick themselves out of prayer and then go back to living in fear of God, like He judged them differently since they backslid or something.

Gary said, almost in passing, last weekend that this next year is going to be a year of maturity. God had spoken that to my heart a month or two ago, and to be honest…I thought He was just talking to me, since I’m finally gaining the momentum and motivation to just suck it up and do what I need to do. Guess not. Quite a while ago, Gary also said in a seemingly casual manner that the path to God is getting more and more narrow. I’ve wondered if that had anything to do with Billy Joe’s and, even more recently, Oral Roberts’. In myself, I’ve wondered ‘who’s next to go? Copeland? Savelle?’ Don’t know if that’s proper or not, but hey…you that know me know how I roll :-)

More or less I just wanted to get what has been bouncing around in my head and move it out onto something where it’s at least in paragraph form. Don’t know if it makes sense or not, but I have been wanting to put what God’s been saying to me into some form of writing so I can ponder on it and hopefully move on to whatever’s next. If God’s been saying something to you, especially if it’s something similar to anything I’ve said, please share it. I think it’d be a good pick-me-up for all of us to know that we’re closer to God and each other than we realize. Thanks.