Today's Thought

Today’s thought from Exodus 16-18

 

Look at all that is going on in these three chapters.  Moses is having a family reunion, the people are dissatisfied with the food, or amount of food they have, they complain about lack of water, and they want Moses to solve all their problems and quarrels.  I thought I have busy days but Moses schedule and burden was ridiculous.  This was all to obvious to others who were close to him.  His father-in-law comes to visit and while he was thrilled to hear all about the great things that God was doing through Moses and for the Israelites, he immediately recognizes that Moses is in a no win situation for his own health, the health of the community and the relationship with his family.  Something that should be obvious to Moses but isn’t.  There are similar problems in these chapters to issues that Moses has already had to deal with.  One indication here is that even though none of these problems is overwhelming for God, they just might be overwhelming for Moses and the people if there isn’t a better way to manage time and issues.  We are talking about thousands upon thousands of people bringing their disputes before Moses.  And while Moses and Aaron are communicating what God wants the people to do and what is expected from the nation, we are talking about one or two men who are making all the decisions for thousands.  So Jethro convinces Moses to divide up responsibilities, duties and decision making into manageable chunks and place responsible, upright people in positions to make decisions over their areas. 

Now you can ask probably anyone that I have ever worked with and you will find that I am a person who likes to lead the charge, loves the new adventure of creating and leading new concepts to reality.  That hasn’t ever really been a struggle for me, that is where I thrive and where I believe I shine.  But eventually the creating becomes programming and the giving of life becomes maintaining a relevant and meaningful program. And the leading the charge becomes ensuring the long term success.  This is where I begin to disconnect.  If it weren’t for our truly skilled managers who are passionate about their areas of ministry, we wouldn’t have any program running long term.  And now even many of them have to turn over aspects of their fields to others to help them manage and improve.  Surrounding oneself with capable, passionate, and loyal team mates it is one the surest way to guarantee success.  It doesn’t guarantee success alone, but without capable managers and sound decision makers, leadership is drastically limited in its ability to grow to any real long term significance.  There is a lot to cover in these three chapters but for me these chapters clearly show that God is capable of any once or reoccurring problem, (after all, God provided food for the grumblers for 40 years) but we must enlist help to make our leadership effective. 

 

Don’t forget to ask for help

Rob