When To Follow, When To Lead

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain. Stay there, and I will give you the tablets of stone on which I have inscribed the instructions and commands so you can teach the people.”  So Moses and his assistant Joshua set out, and Moses climbed up the mountain of God.

Moses told the elders, “Stay here and wait for us until we come back. Aaron and Hur are here with you. If anyone has a dispute while I am gone, consult with them.”  Exodus 24:12-14

Leading is hard.  I find this out every time my daughter decides to push a boundary, and each time my wife and I disagree on something.  My challenges to help people grow and to work with those who may struggle while still managing to achieve the goals of the business at work is nothing short of an undaunted task.  Some might say ‘undaunted’ is a strong word for the simple day to day task and compared to a soldier in the Alamo when it was under siege, it is not that undaunted at all.  But if you have a family and perhaps others that depends on you and your successes, the weight on one’s mind can make it seem that way.  Don’t believe me?  Ask Abraham Lincoln.  Him being a man of faith once said, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”  And yet, he was arguably the greatest President of this nation.  How do you go from ‘my own wisdom and that of all about me’ being ‘insufficient’ to greatness?  It really depends on who you follow and what you learn when you lead.

God provides for us a shining example how to follow Him, and in kind, instructs us on how to lead others.  In reading through this portion of Moses and the journey to The Promised Land, he and several of his leaders and elders are climbing the mountain to God.  In today’s verses, the Lord instructs Moses to carry out His plans for Israel, and two key words shape the narrative here.  The first word ‘come’ was a command that Moses was to follow.  The saying is those who are great leaders must first become great followers.  They are willing to take instruction and commands, and Moses proved his willingness to follow the Lord’s commands at multiple turns.  Second was the word ‘teach.’  This implied to help others.  God could have just as easily come down from the clouds and spoken with fire and brimstone, but Moses was His guy!  Through trials and doubts (remember Moses considered himself not the most eloquent of speakers), he had grown to become the trusted leader of Israel.  And as such, God entrusted him to teach the others.  This principle is not to say everyone must lead.  God gives us all an opportunity to come to Him and learn of His goodness and grace.  In doing so, we are given additional opportunities to teach others these things as well.

God’s plan is always multiple steps ahead of our own.  Our goal is not attempting to outwit Him.  It is to prepare and act on what is needed when called upon.  Sometimes it is to come closer to Him.  Others, it is to teach.  Lincoln understood this as well.  In the middle of the Civil War, he wrote a proclamation for a day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer saying:

We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.  Presidential Proclamation 97, March 30, 1863

Lincoln was humble enough to fall to his knees understanding he didn’t have all the answers, and wise enough to remind a nation where grace, sufficiency, humility, and forgiveness come from.  That is why Paul wrote to Timothy, “I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them.  Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.” (1 Timothy 2:1-2)  I pray we are so humble as to know when to follow, and when chosen, to lead.  Amen.