Hello All,
Lela and I have been spending some time reading Oswald Sanders' classic book, "Spiritual Leadership." This is my 3rd time through this book and each time, it just hits me in a deeper place. The first time I read it was after I had been leading for a long period of time. I realized that my first years in leadership would have been PROFOUNDLY better, had I been made to read this book. I highly recommend this book to every aspiring leader, not so much because it's spiritual, though it certainly is, but simply because the misery should not only be mine! Case in point: Tonight, we were reading chapter 8, entitled "8 Essential Qualities Of Leadership." It should be entitled "8 Daggers Intended To Rip Your Spiritual Heart Out Of Your Body, Revealing What A Wretched, Hopeless Bottom Feeder You Are!" (While this title obviously lacks in brevity, it is much more accurate!) One of the essential qualities covered in the chapter is the quality of humility.
Humility is one of those characteristics that we all tend to laugh about having. I myself have a few stock jokes about the topic. But when one is pressed, it's a characteristic that is perhaps the most elusive to practice and among the most difficult to gauge. I feel like I am in pretty good company (THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE!), especially when I heard a major Christian leader confess his own struggle with this characteristic.
So, back to Spiritual Leadership and the quote that gave me a spiritual beatdown tonight. Oswald quotes William Law from his book "Serious Call."
"Let every day be a day of humility; condescend to all the weaknesses and infirmities of your fellow-creature, cover their frailties, love their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their prosperities, be compassionate over their distress, receive their friendship, overlook the unkindness, forgive their malice, be a servant of servants, and condescend to do the lowliest offices of the lowest of mankind."
Blessings...To Our Friends,
Frank Sanchez
Lela and I have been spending some time reading Oswald Sanders' classic book, "Spiritual Leadership." This is my 3rd time through this book and each time, it just hits me in a deeper place. The first time I read it was after I had been leading for a long period of time. I realized that my first years in leadership would have been PROFOUNDLY better, had I been made to read this book. I highly recommend this book to every aspiring leader, not so much because it's spiritual, though it certainly is, but simply because the misery should not only be mine! Case in point: Tonight, we were reading chapter 8, entitled "8 Essential Qualities Of Leadership." It should be entitled "8 Daggers Intended To Rip Your Spiritual Heart Out Of Your Body, Revealing What A Wretched, Hopeless Bottom Feeder You Are!" (While this title obviously lacks in brevity, it is much more accurate!) One of the essential qualities covered in the chapter is the quality of humility.
Humility is one of those characteristics that we all tend to laugh about having. I myself have a few stock jokes about the topic. But when one is pressed, it's a characteristic that is perhaps the most elusive to practice and among the most difficult to gauge. I feel like I am in pretty good company (THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE!), especially when I heard a major Christian leader confess his own struggle with this characteristic.
So, back to Spiritual Leadership and the quote that gave me a spiritual beatdown tonight. Oswald quotes William Law from his book "Serious Call."
"Let every day be a day of humility; condescend to all the weaknesses and infirmities of your fellow-creature, cover their frailties, love their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their prosperities, be compassionate over their distress, receive their friendship, overlook the unkindness, forgive their malice, be a servant of servants, and condescend to do the lowliest offices of the lowest of mankind."
pg.63, Spiritual Leadership
Anyone else want to quit!? It's not that Jesus is constantly setting the bar higher. It's that we consistently grow in the knowledge that we are ever lower! Our perception of the closeness to our goals that we believe we are achieving, is merely an illusion. Thank God for His grace, a spiritual blessing that I need more of with every passing day.Blessings...To Our Friends,
Frank Sanchez
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