New Year’s resolution: A measure of leadership?
Part 2
This is how we concluded the last devotional: “To answer the question of the title of this devotional, yes, to stick to the new year’s resolutions is the measure of leadership. It takes commitment, stubborn determination to teach the body to be comfortable in an uncomfortable routine. As we are about to begin, yet another year, with new resolutions, let us remember that it is not about how many times we fall, but it is about getting up every time we fall. Is it easy to wake up every time we fall? NOT. Where do we get the strength and courage to wake up every time? The book of Hebrews 12: 1-3, helps us navigate the journeys we are in. It reads:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. 3 Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.
We are talking about "self-leading." As we are leading ourselves, people are watching us. My wise friend said this on the 16th of December 2019. I will paraphrase what he said. There are three groups of people that should keep us going. The first group are those people that we look up to and they don't know that. The second group are our mentors, and they know that we are looking up to them, and the third group are the people who are looking up to us and watching us and we don't even know that. I would like to add the fourth element to that, our individual goals. These goals might be coming from what I call, “our callings”, by that I mean what we were born to be. By having someone you look up to and admire for her/his calling, it is the unconscious acknowledgment that there is more than what meets the eyes and that there will ALWAYS be someone who leads her/himself better than you do. To have someone who walked this race before you (mentors), that is an unconscious acknowledgment that one needs wisdom from the ones who know. The tough one is the awareness that you are being watched/admired by people you don’t know. That is where the fruit of “self-leading” lies. It lies in leading someone unknowingly, while you are leading yourself.
How and where do we get the strength and courage to do it again and again? Let us put this together with our Scripture reading. We are not fixing our eyes on the huge clouds of witnesses, nor we are fixing our eyes on the mentors, people we are looking up to and/ or people who we don't even know that are following us. We are fixing our eyes on the goal. Whatever one's goal is. That is what makes us endure the pain of training our bodies/minds to be comfortable in an uncomfortable routine. That routine might be exercising/reading and writing those assignments/dissertations/papers, homeworks/lifelong learning/regular prayer times, etc. Once we focus on people, we miss our unique lanes into which we need to run. Those individuals are there to motivate us to wake up and run again when we fall. They see us when we fall and that puts us in a very vulnerable position. Sadly, that is where the leader dwells, in the vulnerable space. Whether one is leading one's self or leading a handful of people, the place of a leader is in vulnerability. We will explore the vulnerability of a leader in the next devotional.
Some of us will be starting to implement new year’s resolution in the next week as the school starts, others are already started with their new year's resolutions because the gym is full. Whatever new year's resolution one has, buckle up, you will fall, BUT get up and go back to your lane. You are being watched and surrounded by a HUGE crowd of witnesses. And you have followers of which you are not even aware.
