"My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I,of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories, in all their particularity,as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally." -Frederick Buechner



Friday, July 2, 2010

Where are you leading to?

Moving on in our journey exploring life lessons in leadership from Nehemiah we finish chapter 3 seeing again how the different groups of people repairing the wall worked "outside their homes." Right at home, in their own neighborhood was where they chose to work. It makes sense. They are defending their own territory. Taking a stand to "better the neighborhood". They are making no attempt to hide what they are doing so their family and neighbors have to notice. When my husband stood up and said that this passage spoke to him I felt loved, cared for and protected. Does your family feel that way? It's so easy to give our best energy to our occupation or some community cause. Those are good things and worthy of our attention and effort but is your family cared for and protected? What would they say? When you build the "walls" of protection around your family others will benefit. As we cared for our children many times their friends received the benefit as well. One young man in our life had loving parents but they were divorced and weren't around much. He spent a lot of time in our home. He lived and learned in our home much like our own children did just because he was there. Neighbors are much the same. They are blessed or cursed by the way we live. We are all leading someone, somewhere. It could be your spouse, your children, their friends, neighbors, co-workers, somebody. The question is "where are you leading them, to the cross or away from it?"

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