Passionate Pursuit :
In Part 2 of our series Lead Your Home, we will discuss how “Leading Best Means Pursuing Jesus Passionately.” To illustrate this point let’s begin with a memory of mine from 6th grade summer camp…
Our camp counselors dropped us off in the middle of nowhere with a compass and a map. Tasked with navigating back to the camp within a specific window of time, I took charge of our small marooned group (because I was a Bear Scout and knew stuff). Confident of my abilities and ill-equipped at using a compass or a map I fearlessly led our crew…in the wrong direction. Hours and miles later the camp’s van picked us up. We had failed. 6th grade me with a bowl-cut and acne had led my group astray. Reflecting on this event brings up a very important leadership principle: You can’t take someone where you haven’t gone. I didn’t have the skills to use a map or compass therefore I was not able to pass on the things necessary to get us back to camp. The same is true in fatherhood. You can’t take your family where you haven’t gone.
I define leadership as “Heading towards a destination and taking others with you.” If Jesus is the destination, we’ve got to be heading towards Him ourselves. Another way to say it is, our private victories lead to public victories (Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). When I win in my relationship with Jesus, my family wins too. There is a corresponding relationship between my spiritual health and the spiritual health of my family.
A passionate pursuit of Jesus requires two things: hunger and humility.
“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God” (Ps 42:1)
You have to be hungry. You can’t be stuffing yourself on the junk our culture puts before you. The times I’m not spiritually hungry are the times when my focus is on things like video games, my phone (Yes, I went there), sports, the next new shiny piece of tech, “getting ahead” financially , or at times even doing ministry. You can’t have a hunger for Jesus if you’re already full from other things.
“I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you’” (Ps 16:2)
You have to be humble. You won’t have a hunger for God if you don’t think you need Him. Humility shows us we need God in order to love and lead our family well. It causes us to repent of being short-tempered, lazy, impatient towards screaming toddlers, or discontented. It drives us to rely on the grace that saved us and is now perfecting us into the image of Jesus.
Lydia and I have tried to pray together everyday, an uphill battle that took the better part of 3 ½ years to see some victory in. Through that time I saw how my commitment or lack thereof to pray together affected us both. When I was quick to initiate prayer then it turned into a powerful time that encouraged us both. When I was “too tired” or spiritually disengaged then the frequency of our times in prayer diminished. The best way I can lead my home is by following David’s example and being a man after God’s own heart.
May our children know us for being men that seek after Jesus with every ounce of our will! Be hungry and humble and you WILL lead your family as the Lion-Hearted Man God has created you to be!
Next week will talk about “Servant Leadership” and how it is the most effective way to empower your family.
Is there someone else that would find this encouraging? Share it!