Be Leaders By Following!

        If you have started reading this and I hope you have, please continue. My name is Josh Shaffer and I have no actual credentials to list as part of the reason you will take my advice, but I hope this will be help to at least one person. Here we go. I have very recently came to a conclusion in my life about life itself, and that is this, "To lead, you must follow". I am a living, breathing follower of Jesus Christ and I believe in all that biblical stuff. If you have made it this far thank you and here comes the rest. Often when I am delivering a message to churches when they ask me to speak I talk about following the example of Jesus. In my adult life I have read many books about leadership, leadership in the workplace, the home, and everywhere in between. I have recently given up bending my mind around the concept of driving my own leadership skills to a new level and instead, I am learning to give all things to Christ. I have had a thousand things to get accomplished this week, but instead my house hold fell prey to a terrible stomach flue. Everyone from me to my wife, to our child. Nothing was accomplished but hospital visits and sleeping. I felt anxious by this and just then I felt a still voice inside me say, lead by following. Take care of whats important, what can wait, can wait. It was then I knew I had been using my judgment and not the logic of Christ. Love, compassion, and true leadership. I give myself now, to the discernment of what is loving rather than efficient. If you are feeling rushed and not stopping to love what needs loved, I ask you to live life, and not rush it away. Don't rush it away feeling like leading is always moving in one direction. Sometimes that roadmap just leads to a dead end.

My prayer for you and me. Father God, Let your children realize that you have placed us here to love one another. Let our families and lives be treated as a treasure rather than a commodity that is here forever. Let us lead by doing what is essential, rather than what we see as efficient.
Amen

Thank you for reading, and God bless.
-Josh Shaffer-