An Unhurried Leader

I want to be unhurried enough to discern God's voice and sense his guidance for my life, my relationships, and my writing. When my heart is a hamster wheel, my inner life becomes a blur.

Hurried leaders are quick to do and slow to be; quick to speak but slow to listen; quick to teach and slow to learn; quick to lead others but slow to let God lead them beside his still waters.

Prayer really is someone we are with more than something we do.

People ask me to pray for healing, financial concerns, and muchneeded jobs. Usually, people hope to see a specific situation changed. How does this compare to how Paul prayed for the churches to whom he wrote? Let's look at his prayer for his brothers and sisters in Thessalonica: "Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith" (1 Thess 3:10). Paul's prayer focused more on the people's inner life than on their outer life.

So many of our prayers—especially those we pray at the beginning of our spiritual journeys-are self-centered. We want things from God. We want to feel better, have more, see problems solved, be more important, and so on. As we awaken to God's presence with us, our focus during prayer might, thankfully, move from a crass seeking of outward pleasures to a God-honoring seeking after inward character

Too many times, though, on a very practical level, I've done work without God. Of course I can't actually do anything without God, but I'm talking about the sort of practical atheism that has too often characterized seasons of my work. None of us sets out to be atheists in our work, but our sense of God being with us as we work can grow thin. Our heads are down and we're getting things done, but we have little sense of the heart or hand of God with us as we're doing them.

It's that last phrase that captures me: Jesus "always lives to intercede for them." His is a continual, vital, and personal conversation with the Father for my good and for your good. And it seems to me that since Jesus has called me one of his friends (Jn 15:15), he might enjoy interacting with me about his care for people in my life whom―on his behalf-I'd like to bless, serve, influence for his kingdom purposes.