May 09, 2005
Where there is no revelation (or vision), the people cast off restraint…
--Psalm 29:18
Over the next few days, I’d like to share something that is very important to me and should be important to all of us—leadership. Don’t think of leadership as being the CEO or manager in a big organization, but think of it as being a leader in terms of your relationships with others. Borrowed from the song by Dean Martin and slightly changed, I would say, “Everybody leads somebody sometime.”
We all have the responsibility to lead—especially when you consider what the definition of leadership is. It means to influence another. We all influence, positively or negatively, those around us. And we’re given the opportunity to make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others through our families, marriages, work relationships, and church relationships.
I consider my leadership responsibility the most important thing in my life because I’m a husband, and I have the responsibility to love and lead my wife. I am a father, so I have the huge responsibility of influencing my children. And I am a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so I have a great responsibility to lead others to Him.
It’s been said that human history is a record of mass accomplishment under leadership. Almost all of us have heard the phrase: everything rises and falls on leadership. And there is no better place to find examples of leadership and influence than in the Bible. The first characteristic of a good leader is vision. Solomon, a leader in the Old Testament, said, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Psalm 29:18). That’s true, isn’t it? Where there is no vision, there will be no accomplishment or meaning. And where there is vision, people will flourish.
If we have a vision for the people that we lead in our lives, in the church, in ministry, or in the marketplace, we have an opportunity to help them to flourish. I believe motivational author and speaker Zig Ziglar is so successful because he has taught us all that if we can help enough people to get where they want in life, we can soon discover that we’re getting where we want to in life. We don’t just go alone, but the goal is to encourage and equip those around us.
What we see or envision becomes what we are. Ask God to help you have a vision for seeing things that are invisible. Pray for wisdom, that you may understand how to successfully carry out good leadership skills in your life through a godly vision of how the Lord wants you to positively influence those around you.
WHAT YOU SEE ULTIMATELY BECOMES WHAT YOU GET IN LIFE.
THAT IS THE VISION AND TRUE CHARACTERISTIC OF A LEADER.