Building a Leader: The Right Raw Material

 

MacArthur begins today’s devotional with: “God can use your natural abilities as a basis for your spiritual service.” My first reaction was from experience; God gives all abilities through His Spirit. In myself I am useless.

Then I remembered a quilt class in Canmore, Alberta. The teacher asked us to introduce ourselves. In my case, I mentioned my struggles with ADD and how that interfered with getting things finished. This teacher also had a degree in psychology. She told me how I could use my easily distracted characteristics to my advantage.

Last Sunday we had a guest speaker who works in a Christian camp in Europe. After the service, I chatted with him and said something about ADD. He told me he was diagnosed at age 6, but God was teaching him how to use his tendency to be easily distracted to advantage. Our discussion was a blessing to both.

Peter is a good illustration of how God takes a person’s natural traits and works from there. Natural traits alone don’t make a spiritual leader; the calling and gifting of the Holy Spirit must be there, yet those natural abilities are also from Him and He can used them as raw material. Peter was curious, took initiative, and liked to be in the middle of things. He was always asking questions and showed concern for problems and finding solutions. Not only that, he was usually the first to respond when Jesus asked questions.

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:15–16)

And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!” (Luke 8:45)

MacArthur often called Peter ‘the bruised and bleeding disciple’ because he walked so close to Jesus that every time Jesus stopped, Peter crashed into Him. Peter liked to be in the middle of things. He was the only one who got out of the boat to walk on water with the Lord. He was in the middle of things during Jesus’ trial. We criticize him for denying that he knew Jesus, but God was not finished with him yet.

For me, being inquisitive means searching the Scriptures for God’s answers and His will, making certain what I’m taught is biblical, and just wanting to know truth. I’m don’t care that much about being the center of attention, but I do like to be heard when God gives me something to say.

As for being easily distracted, this ‘ability’ has messed with my prayer life and pulled me away from study and important tasks, yet God is teaching me to use it to allow Him to distract me from ordinary life and hear His voice. I can pray when I’m doing other things and be pulled aside easily from ordinary activities to talk to Him about the thoughts that intrude into my head. He uses my mind’s ability to wander, taking me into His thoughts and concerns far more easily than ever before. Others notice this and express how they would like to be that quick to think God’s thoughts. ADD turns into a plus instead of an annoyance.

Jesus, the devotional says to cultivate the qualities that I have. I’m thinking that I don’t have to do that because You are the Savior and You do in me what needs to be done. I cannot become like You by self-effort, but You use all things for good, that I might be transformed into Your image. Who knows, maybe ADD is more normal than normal because You have also used it to easily distract me away from selfish concerns to quickly pray for, call, or show interest in whoever or whatever pops into my mind.

CONSIDER: Did Peter’s curious mind sometimes look like an easily distracted mind. Think of ways God uses both. See Matthew 15:15; 18:21; 19:27; Mark 13:2–4; John 21:20–22.

 

“You follow Me”

In the story, “The Horse and His Boy” from the Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, the boy Shasta is overwhelmed by the Lion who deeply injures his companion, Aravis. Later the Lion comes to him and he is perplexed and afraid. He does not yet know that this is Aslan — who for readers is a symbol of Jesus Christ.

Shasta asks the Lion, “Then it was you who wounded Aravis?” The Lion said it was, and the boy asks, “What for?” The Lion replies, “Child, I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”

Jesus is like that. He does not tell others about my issues like a gossip might do. He also can be trusted with the secrets of my heart and will never blab them to someone else.

That said, He does give the gift of discernment to some people. With it, discerners just know what is happening in some cases where God wants them involved to help, encourage, or exhort. But there is one huge problem with the gift of discernment; misuse. Chambers calls it “being an amateur providence” because those who have this gift can attempt to interfere with God’s plans for other people.

For instance, if someone is sick, I might assume they should not suffer, forgetting that God uses sickness. Sometimes it is a way to glorify Him in the healing, but sometimes it is chastening for sin, or His way of drawing people closer, or even His way of taking them home. How I talk to sick people requires a great deal of sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Otherwise when He talks to me, God will keep quiet about details in the lives of others.

Peter was the first to learn this lesson, and was likely the model for this part of Lewis’ story. He was with Jesus after His resurrection . . .

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:20–22)

For me, this is a vital lesson. I know to pray or even encourage a Christian is not growing spiritually, but even then I must seek God’s face for discernment in the way to do it. If any person suffers in any manner, I cannot assume that their suffering should be removed because I know from my own experience that God can use suffering in powerful ways. But I must not assume they are sick because of sin in their lives. The Lord wants my full dedication; sometimes I need suffering to bring me to that. There are other reasons for it also, so I cannot pray to remove or prevent it without God’s direction.

As Chambers says, my relationship with God determines whether or not His discernment will be shared with me to use in someone’s life. I need to be continually devoted to Him, listening always for His guidance.

Chambers adds an even greater challenge. He says that being consciously devoted to God is immature, adding that genuine maturity means being so abandoned to God that the consciousness of being used never enters my mind. That is, any consciousness of myself and what God is doing through me is just not there because I am only conscious of being utterly dependent on God.

I’m not there yet.