October 11. Are You Running About?

As a leader, what are you moving towards? Sometimes leading our team towards something also means leading them away from others. That means sometimes we need to say no. We need to avoid those distractions that do not support why we serve.

We attempt to avoid places that we could serve without value. Can you think of examples in the past where your relationships just did not click? As you look at it now, was there really a great value exchange? Picking the low hanging fruit from a tree is easy.

It can happen without planning, and it does not take much energy. Innocent people passing by can pick it. People that are lost and who wind up in the orchard will pick it. When we allow our team to have low value exchanges, we are not being the best of who we can be.

It might be easier to talk about avoiding low value situations than it is to do it in practicality. I believe we want to give value. Sometimes we want it so badly that we try to deliver it in places that are just inappropriate. Where might your team be engaged in a misaligned value proposition?

Leaders help the team get realigned. As a leader, who can help you to get realigned? What is the first thing that you can do about it this week?

As brothers and sisters in Christ, knowing when to run from and when to run to, might be the most difficult things we decide. When we see evil in action, our fears might control us more than love. But Christ asked us to love. He asked us to turn the other cheek which is an action of love and not fear.

It is hard sometimes to turn the cheek though. We read, “But you, Timothy, are a man of God; so run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.” 1 Timothy 6:11 NLT. Maybe the best thing we can do is to run from evil and to do it while we are running towards something positive.

We can make the decision to overcome our fears and insert a decision to run to that which honors God. Where might you be running from something without a conscious decision of running towards God? Every decision to run from evil can be a decision that takes us into an intentional direction.

For some, knowing what direction we need to run before we get interrupted by fear or evil is the best tactic. As the leader of your faith journey, where do you want to run to in the next ninety days? What is the first thing you can do about it in the next seven days?

Let us pray, Heavenly Father, you have given us the ability to decide. We thank you for your grace when we make the wrong decisions. Guide us today and gently push us in the direction that you might have us move towards.

Help us to share compassion and love with one another to push away the fears. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen,