Matt's Muzings
Transformation and the Fear of the Lord
Each morning I rise early and spend time with God and get ready for the day. Before I know it I walk into a classroom with 42 wonderful students and 9 great staff from different parts of the world.
It would be easy to just run a program, stick to a predetermined schedule and do things the way they have always been done. If I did that then context would not matter as I would assume there is only one context and I would only be interested in giving them information. I could do things the way I did them before and they would work this time.
But that is not what is on the heart of God and what I am interested in. God is interested in transformation. There are over 50 very different people sitting in a classroom. That unique combination of people creates a place or context that is unique. A once in a lifetime, combination of relationships, timing, faith, wounds and choices all woven together to form an unique opportunity.
As a leader, how do I look or see this? Solomon wrote there is an appointed time for everything, a time to: tear down and build up, search and give up, weep and laugh the question always before me in my leadership is which emphasis should I choose? How can I know what the context is that I should lead in to provide transformation?
Each day that place or context changes as people have made choices and new opportunities open and other areas of the heart are closed. Because each context is different, each situation will have a unique emphasis that is needed. But how can I know what is the best emphasis that will bring life into the class? My leadership is key to do this, but how do I see? Where do I start?
As I sit here my mind wanders to three or four in the class that are struggling. They brought old habits to the school with them and are not sure they want to make the choices that are needed to move forward. Do I confront them? Do I continue in grace with clear communication? I long to find the right emphasis that will maximize the opportunity for light and truth to be manifest. For God’s presence to be among us.
The Fear of the Lord creates the Context
Recently, I have been wrestling to clarify some thoughts on the fear of the Lord. On a recent flight I felt like I got it.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning place to understand any context. Reverence for God, that deep sense of awe for who He is, is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. His greatness, power and wisdom is what sets the context for looking at any situation. I think of the twelve spies who were sent out to look at the promised land. They were to define the situation to the rest of Israel. Ten of them saw giants in the land, Joshua and Caleb looked at the land and saw something different. What was the difference between these leaders who created a different context?
The difference was the fear of the Lord. A reverence for God, his power and wisdom allowed Joshua and Caleb to see an opportunity through His eyes. The ten spies only looked with their own eyes and only saw reverence for the people (giants) in the land. They were afraid and turned the hearts of the people away from what was on God’s heart.
The beginning place for any leader trying to understand what is going on in any situation is to have the fear of the Lord.
Now, this is a very painful observation because it seems to me that there is very little fear of God in our modern western church leadership. Maybe that is why we are often irrelevant to the world. I will make a strong statement but it seems an appropriate emphasis right now, until there is the fear of God, a reverence for His greatness, wisdom and position, in the Body of Christ, we will have nothing to say of relevance to anyone else because we will not have a context that begins with God.
How do you see your business? How do we look at governments and terrorism? How do you see yourself? When you show up for work does it begin with the fear of God?
If it doesn’t then you will end up like the ten spies and Israel who lost the context and thus the capacity to know how to live their lives in the light of God’s presence among them.
Please pray for me and my leadership that I would have a renewed and deeper sense of the fear of God. I desperately need that in a changing world and classroom.