The Art of Leadership By Dag Heward-Mills
It is important to recognize when God visits you to provide for you. God loves you! God cares for you! God daily provides for you! Do not think that God provides for only some of His children. You wouldn’t do that to your children, would you? So why would you think that God Almighty would care for some of His children and leave others destitute? That is not the case. The problem is that we can often not recognize God’s provision to us because we feel there is only a particular way in which He visits us.
…you did not recognize the time of your visitation. Luke 19:44 (NASB)
The disciples walked several miles with the Lord but did not recognize Him. Isn’t that amazing? “After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country” (Mark 16:12). They did not recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus because He appeared to them in another form. The Lord told Adam and Eve to look around them and see that He had provided everything that they needed. Perhaps if they had not looked around they would not have noticed that everything they needed was already there. Perhaps that would have made them content and without a desire to take any other offers. You need to become a master at discerning how God has provided for you!
- A leader recognizes the importance of the strangers God sends to him.
Great blessings came to the family of Zipporah when they received a stranger called Moses into their lives. We are often wary of strangers and only expect blessings to come through people we know. But God can use an absolute stranger to bring you into great blessings. The Scripture encourages us to entertain strangers because sometimes a stranger is an angel in disguise. That is why you must be open and polite to all and sundry.
…But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, how is it that ye are come so soon today?
And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock. And he said unto his daughters, and where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.
Exodus 2:15-21
- A leader recognizes the importance of the enemies God has allowed into his life.
Many leaders tremble when they encounter enemies in their lives, work and ministry. Ironically, these enemies are often used by the Lord to bring greatness into the lives of the leaders. You must trust the Lord and learn to say, “God is great!” You must learn to recognize that sometimes God does use your enemy to make you advance to your destiny. It is not only your friends who can help you. You can be helped by your enemy! In fact, the enemy often brings out the best in you. Your enemy will do for you what your friend cannot do.
See the enemy in a different light. Watch for how their stubbornness, their wickedness, their treachery, their envy and hatred are being used by the Lord to enhance your life! All things work together for good and God can and will bless you through your enemies. Not only will you overcome your enemies but also these enemies will be used to make you into a greater person.
When people do not recognize God’s provision for what it is, they ignore it and start complaining. We often wish God would do things in a particular way. Naaman, the Syrian, expected the prophet to minister the healing in a particular way. “And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper” (2Kings 5:10-11). In the same way, we often expect God to meet our needs in a particular way. Our expectation may not be congruent to what God is doing. Therefore, try to recognize God’s provision that comes through people, especially those you see as disqualified. theaol@ymail.com