day 297: Follow The Leader

Yesterday in the Children’s Church that I help teach at our church one of the other teachers was talking to the kids about how important it was that we follow Jesus. In the course of her teaching she asked the kids why it so hard to follow Him? One of the smarter and quicker to answer kids said, “Because we can’t see Him”. As I listened to that answer I also heard more than just a child’s response, I heard a business person’s lesson on how to be better at following Jesus in our work lives. At work it is always easier to follow someone who we work more closely with than it is someone who we have little interaction and/or only hear about what he/she thinks or says. I believe this is one of the reasons that all of the management and leadership studies show that our direct and immediate supervisor or manager is the person who we trust most at work. The layers of people above us and the hierarchy that comes with those layers, dissolve the trust, layer by layer. It’s just hard to trust someone you don’t know and it’s impossible to follow someone you don’t trust. If any of us are managers or leaders then we should be aware that we carry a great responsibility and burden as the person who others are counting on and trusting with their work, their jobs, their careers. And our leaders are counting on us to follow them as they do their best to lead. They look to us to fulfill their wishes and support the vision, mission and objectives of the company or their area. When we “fall in line” and follow, they are pleased. When we stray and go our own way, they are not happy with us. The same is true of how we follow Jesus. No, we cannot see Him. No, we cannot expect that we are going to receive a divine intervention or an audible “word” from God telling us what to do. As much as we would love it, we are not going to get the direct words of Jesus like in Mark 1:17, when He said,“Come follow me...” We don’t need those as we have been given so many ways within His word to know how to follow His leadership. At work we are expected to follow a leader, in our life we are expected to follow THE leader. If we can apply the same amount of concentration, effort and commitment to following Jesus day in and day out, as we do to follow a leader at work, we may find that the rewards we begin receiving from being a follower are multiplied many times over. Are you being a follower and living out daily the expectations and desires of God? Would those around you at work know that you follow a larger leader in your life? As we close off this year and we plan for next year, now would be a great time to start thinking about how to improve our following skills.

Reference: Mark 1:17 (New Living Testament)