Focusing Leaders

When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the LORD’s anointed!” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

Leaders are attracted to results. They are good at making judgments, and usually base them on pragmatic criteria, that is, what works.

However, God says there is something even more important - our thoughts and intentions.

Of course, these are harder to judge than peoples' talent and competence. But there are ways to identify them. The Navigators had a helpful yardstick for evaluating potential disciples, measuring their faithfulness, availability, and teachability.

Lord, help me learn to see these qualities in people, to look at them the way you do. Even more, Lord, let me be the kind of person who pleases you. Please work in my heart to make me completely surrendered to your plan and wholheartedly pursuing your purposes.

"But I did obey the LORD," Saul insisted. "I carried out the mission he gave me...."

Leaders are by nature big picture people. We like to look at the objectives and leave the details to others. But sometimes the details can be our downfall.

Saul completed the mission God gave him, but he did not obey the details God commanded. Either he didn't pay attention, or he expected that God would understand and wouldn't care. After all, he thought he accomplished the important part.

But God said that the details were important to him. In fact, perhaps the carrying out of the details was the reason for the mission in the first place. We do not have the freedom to interpret which part of the commands are important and which part we can skip. We had better pay attention to all of it.

Father, please help me pay attention to all that you say to me, and take it all seriously without ignoring the parts I don't like or the parts that seem unimportant or are too difficult to follow through on. I want to be completely obedient to you.

"How foolish!" Samuel exclaimed. "You have disobeyed the command of the LORD your God....But now your dynasty must end, for the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart."

Leaders by nature are people of action. In this scene, when Samuel comes upon Saul, he finds that Saul has gone ahead and offered sacrifices without the priest's presence, because he didn't think Samuel would show up. He was getting nervous that if he waited any longer for Samuel's arrival, he would lose his strategic advantage in the battle he was about to undertake.

Samuel's rebuke is a warning to all of us who look for strategic advantages. We need to realize that the most important strategic advantage is God's blessing, and that all other issues of timing and PR and any other kind of condition pale in comparison.

We need to put first things first, and keep our activist natures in check by first discerning what God wants of us and how to please him and obey him. We need to cultivate our hearts to be sensitive to God's leading and be at peace that he is in charge. If he asks something of us, we will not lose an advantage by obeying him; but rather will gain our greatest strength.

Lord, help me resist my anxious nature to get things done which I consider urgent, and calm myself to listen to you and understand what you consider most important for me to do.

"As for me, I will certainly not sin against the LORD by ending my prayers for you. And I will continue to teach you what is good and right."

In Samuel's retirement speech, he makes a curious comment, saying that he would be sinning against God if he stopped praying for people. Have you ever thought of praying for people as an obligation that God expects of you? Have you got a list of people that God has given you some kind of responsibility for, and for whom you are praying regularly? This really struck me about a year ago, that I am involved in helping many people grow spiritually, and that I spend a lot of time teaching and training and modelling and leading and encouraging, and that I also ought to be very intentionally praying for their growth and development, as well as investing in them with my time and energy. I need to give them attention in communion with God as well as attention in personal communication.

I encourage you to make or to review your prayer list, and to commit yourself to praying daily for the people God has put around you.

Father, help me see the people you have given me responsibility for. Thank you for those precious relationships, and please bless them today in their love and obedience and growth in you, to feel your presence and protection adn guidance, to gain more passion for their growth in you and more vision for your purposes in their lives. In Jesus' name, amen.

"Then the Spirit of God came mightily upon Saul, and he became very angry."

When God works in our lives, when he speaks to us, he also moves us. We feel what he feels. Relationship with God is not just an intellectual exercize, but it engages our whole being. When he changes our thoughts and perspectives and values, he also changes our feelings. As we begin to look at our lives and the world and others as God sees them, we begin feeling the way he does. Sometimes it is intuitive and not a conscious decision. But we can be aware of what we are experiencing and ask ourselves, "Is this from the Lord, or from my own personality and culture?"

Here we also see that Saul's godly reaction was confirmed by the response of the people. "And the LORD made the people afraid of Saul's anger, and all of them came out together as one."

Father, I give you my heart along with my mind and will. Please have your way with me today, shape me to see things the way you do, and change my heart to care about what you care about.

"At that time the Spirit of the LORD will come upon you with power, and you will prophesy with them. You will be changed into a different person."

All of my life I've been getting used to who I am. Yet God wants to make me a different person. Am I open to the changes he wants to make? Less of me, and more of him?

Lord, take me today and transform me. Change me into a different person. Lord Jesus, have your way with me and show yourself through me. I surrender myself and embrace you. Fill me up with your spirit and live through me.

"As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him, and everything Samuel said was wise and helpful."

What a great evaluation! I wish these qualities could be said of me.

-everything
-wise
-helpful

Lord, make me wise and make me helpful, and make it my consistent character.

"So Pilate, anxious to please the crowd, released Barabbas to them."

How often do I succumb to the pressure of wanting to please the crowd? Sometimes it is not even many people, just one other person's opinion. The motivating force in Pilate making this decision was an external factor, not what he knew to be right.

Lord, give me greater discernment to sense your leading and make wise decisions, and greater courage to act on them and not be swayed by external factors.

Jesus is praying all night before his arrest and crucifixion, and finds that his disciples can't stay awake with him.

"Keep alert and pray. Otherwise temptation will overpower you. For though the spirit is willing enough, the body is weak."

This is a basic conflict we all face, between our spiritual aspiration and our physical limitation.

-In what ways, and to what degree, is my body weak?
-How willing is my spirit?

Lord, I surrender myself to your purposes and plans for me. Make my spirit completely willing to bend to your will. Show me where my body is weak, and give me wisdom and strength to overcome my weaknesses