Todd's Blog


Heads or Tails?
August 12, 2010, 10:05 am
Filed under: Leadership, Spiritual Formation | Tags: , , , ,


Today is the first day of school for my kids. After the typical photo shoot and goodbyes with my daughters I had some time with my son whose classes start later. I decided that breakfast was a great opportunity to discuss some basics of leadership with him. I already see his leadership ability and I want to encourage that gift and channel it in the right direction. During the conversation I asked him to explain the difference between the head and the tail in the animal world. He looked at our dog sprawled across the kitchen floor and said “The tail has a butt under it but the head has a chest under it.” I guess you never know what to expect when asking a 10 year old boy a question. We went on to discuss how the head always determines the direction of the tail and not the other way around. We talked about how everyone is either influencing or being influenced. I prayed with him and asked God to make him a leader and influencer at school this year. I prayed that he would be the head and not the tail. 

 
This is something I feel like God is asking of me lately. Too often I’m influenced by people, circumstances and popular culture. Too often I look for someone to follow or emulate instead of blazing a trail. Too often I act like the tail and not the head. But I know I’m called to more and I’ve been hearing that still small voice speak one simple word.
 
Lead.
 
Are you hearing it, too?
  
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:1-2  

The Message  

   

 

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