Leaders, Where Is Your Backbone?

A great leader can make tough calls today for the sake of a better future.

I rarely remember sermons from years ago, but this one I do. It was Andy Stanley during the last US presidential election, on leadership. He spoke about the Old Testament Joseph and how he made tough choices today to keep his people alive through a 7-year famine. He had the courage to save grain during the good years, when starvation was the furthest thing possible on people’s minds.

As a global economic crisis is looming on us, our leaders should be able make tough decisions today, take responsibility, have foresight so that the future could be better.

The temptation is to make political decisions based on the hope of re-election, while the world needs leaders who will take the responsibility today, so that current economic problems won’t multiply and explode on the lap of the next generation.

Unfortunately our Western culture has deteriorated so nicely into pure Individualism that such leaders with true foresight are hard to find. This is true in our personal lives too.

How to have that perspective and humility, that it is not just about me and my pleasure, but about coming generations?

Chain of Human History

Everyone agrees that genealogies are the most boring bits of the Bible. Long litanies of names you cannot pronounce. In all their tediousness there’s a point.

Reading through the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph one thing strikes me. They received promises and made decisions not just for themselves, but for the future generations.  They understood that each person, each generation is just one link in the chain of human history.

We really don’t think this way. Our main concern is how to make me happy, make me more money to buy more toys, and to get some loving. Let’s enjoy today and who cares about tomorrow, because tomorrow may never come.

We are so shortsighted.

Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave to Egypt. Years later,  during famine the same brothers came to buy grain from Joseph, who was now the ruler of Egypt, second only to the Pharaoh. Joseph says the most remarkable thing:

“Do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God  sent me ahead of you.”

Joseph was able to forgive the most grievous wrong, because he saw that his life and work was not about him, but about the future of a people. He was just one link in the chain of people that make human history.

When I start to ask myself, how can I live not just for me, but for the future generations, everything changes. Suddenly how I live has consequences beyond me. What are the tough decisions that I (we) need to make now, to preserve what’s to come?  What are the battles I (we) have to fight, so that the up and coming generation won’t have to?

Let’s look further.

Successful Failure

To succeed in life you need to fail.

It seems to be God’s number one training tool for such Biblical personalities as Adam & Eve (banished from the garden of Eden to live the consequences of failing to trust God), Moses (son of a princess, spent 40 years herding sheep in the desert after he took matters into his own hands and killed a man), Joseph (showed off his future calling to the annoyance of his brothers who sold him as a slave), Jonah (decided to run instead of obey and spent three days inside a whale) and the list goes on.

Modern day successes have had their dark times too. Lucille Ball was dismissed from drama school. The Beatles were turned down by a record company who said, “guitar music is on its way out” and Michael Jordan didn’t make it to his high school basketball team.

These stories could have ended here. Instead they picked themselves up and learned from their failures. Actually failing only proves that you have tried.

Go out and be a a successful failure today!