no Bible comments today

I went up and went to a leaders' training at Vineyard this morning. I feel quite conflicted about this whole thing. I am a reluctant leader. MP spoke to that in several ways. The chief being courage. I have little innate courage. It's all I can do to get any at all. I tell myself I do not want to be a leader but really it is because leading takes courage. It is in short supply with me. A lot of what I do in life is the work to increase my courage.

The second chief problem is why anyone would want to follow me, take me as any kind of guide? The main answer to that is my firm belief that it is not about me, it is about God. The more I can be like Paul said, strong in my weakness the better God gets the glory. I do not want to be a distraction to get in God's way. I think it often works.

I am studying John 15:1-8. The concluding verse says that God gets the glory in our doing good work and being his disciples. God calls us to do good works and that involves leading. Whether I like it or not God calls us to lead, to be courageous.

MP quoted some pithy stuff. One that I have used a lot is to the effect that anything worth doing is worth doing badly. In my words, if I feel the need is great so much so that I will do it, no matter how badly I do it, it is better than it not being done at all. Was it Spurgeon, who upon being criticized by a lady in her church about how badly he evangelized, responded, "Better how badly I do it than to how you do not do it at all."?

Another way to put it is I am OK with trying and failing or trying and not doing it perfectly. To wait until I get it together would be never to do it at all. My Kegan's Marriage Alpha classes are like that. We are actually getting proficient at it.

Now that is funny that I say that. We thought this last one went so well only to find after the last class there were some serious problems. It seems we were not on the alert like we should have and the prisoners did some illegal stuff. So pride goes before the fall. I have to not take things for granted. Prison rules are very serious and these guys are pretty devious.

But one of the things I felt God telling me was that I should take Tuesday off from Life Group and go use my ticket to watch baseball. I'm sure no one will agree that is what God is saying. Is is courage or simple bullheadedness? heh