Vision and Influence – Who’s Gonna Clear the Weeds?

Every passion and vision comes with obstacles. It is as though there’s always a path to be cleared through deep weeds before we can forward a passion or gain traction with a vision. When God gives us a piece of His vision it is ours to move forward with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and with the passion that arises from the practice of the Presence of God. When God causes a passion to arise within me the forwarding of that passion becomes my responsibility. When the vision is bigger than me and it can also become the vision of others, then it becomes “our vision,” rather than “my vision,” and together we can whack the weeds. 

As a leader I cannot tell you how many times someone has come to me with a passion or a vision and expected me to give them 100% support, platform, finances, and influence — ah, they wanted a piece of my influence. They wanted to tap into an anointing that rested upon me, maybe because of a mantle I’d been given, and use it to forward their agenda. 

Sometimes I do the same thing, unwittingly, but I sometimes do the same thing. When I expect someone to lend me relational capital and influence to cut a swath through the weeds so I can do what God has asked of me, I might be doing the same thing. 

This morning I am thinking about the things in my heart that I and/or our team needs to move forward. I sometimes feel an emotion that I will call frustration because I need help cutting the weeds down to make a way. Reality is, when God has called us to do something challenging and difficult, he puts a machete in our hands and he points to the weeds. Not even God makes the weeds disappear for us when he gives us a passion or a vision, he expects us to cut a path!

Cutting the path is part of pursing the vision. You know, I’ve become really good at standing on a hill and looking at the weeds in front of me and complaining that if someone would just cut a path through those weeds just think of what we could do for the Kingdom. Alas my friend, when God gives you a vision, you also get the weeds. 

When I build my grand plans rooted in the passion and vision in my heart, and when I make grand plans, I have to make a plan for the weeds. How will we clear a path? How will we inspire, encourage, enlist, and include people in the vision and how will we clear a path together. No one is going to clear weeds for my vision, but if my vision is a part of a greater vision in which others are engaged, we can clear the weeds together. 

I don’t want to give my limited influence away unless it is a wise expenditure. I cannot give my influence to something I don’t believe in wholeheartedly, no one can expect me to do that, I cannot expect anyone else to do that.

Positioning Ourselves to Hear and Capture the Heartbeat of God

Listening, processing, and writing.

You know, something strange just happened and often happens when I open my journal for the morning. I thought, “I don’t have any thoughts to write.” My response to myself was, “I rarely have thoughts when I open my journal, the thoughts come after I start writing.” And that’s exactly what happens almost every morning. 

Often I have nothing to write until I write, nothing to pray until I pray, and nothing to hear until I listen. It is the first step that leads us to the next step. 

Journaling is the way I listen to God and the way I actively listen to myself. It helps me zone down enough to listen to the heartbeat of God, but the other very important thing that I don’t often think about is the journal helps me discover what I am really thinking and how I really feel about things. Writing is an important discipline, and I will even say it is a spiritual discipline, for me at least, because it forces the organization and articulation of thoughts. Journaling causes me to stop and listen to the heartbeat of God. 

I am a written processor living in a world of verbal processors. I am always at a disadvantage in the moment with a verbal processor because I need to think and gather my thoughts and make sure what I am saying is what I mean. This is why I often say, if you have a question for me on Wednesday I am going to have an awesome answer for you on Thursday. I have learned the value of saying to a leader, a board, a critic, “let me think through that and let’s set a time to talk.” I am an extroverted introvert; I easily engage relationally with people, but quiet time is where I think and refuel. No more apologies for how I am wired, it has served me very well. 

The journal gives me the gift of not needing to be perfect because no one will see what I write, unless I choose to share it (as I might with this part of today’s journal). I am writing for myself and if I do give others a window into my journal, maturity has finally gotten me to the place that I just don’t care how many views, likes, or shares it gets. If one person is encouraged by or resonates with or reflects upon one thing, that’s enough. When I write for an audience I inevitably start to think about what that audience will like, what they will criticize, how I can explain myself so they will not misunderstand. When I journal I have an audience of one, God, and He already knows my thoughts better than I do. 

The journal allows me to liberally explore what’s inside me. Journal pages are infinite. I can go page after page after page because I have no one saying, “you need to cut that down because no one is going to read it.” In my journal, who reads it is not an issue and I love the feeling of being able to just go on a long and complex journey of writing until paths start to emerge. 

I feel the unction to start sharing things from my journal that I want to share. To not worry about perfection or critics or even if it is worthy to be shared. Everything I write I write in my journal before it finds its way to an article, a resource, or a podium. When I used to write a blog I would sit looking at the screen trying to come up with something pithy and profound. Now, I just want Christ in me to leak out onto the pages and maybe some of it I will share when it feels right to do so. 

Leadership by Necessity Not Choice

Transformational Servant Leadership

I’ve always been more comfortable as a follower than as a leader. I am first a follower, a follower of Christ, a follower of the people who have been put in my life to lead and direct things of which I am a part. If you don’t learn to follow well you can never lead well when that necessity arises.

I like it when someone else has the pressure of taking the risk, when someone else takes the hit when something goes wrong, someone else has to make the hard calls and I can do what I do best without those added pressures. But throughout my life I keep finding myself in the place of leadership, not because I want to be or need to be, but because it is necessary to steward the call of God upon my life and to accept the weight of giving something of myself and my experience to someone who is on a transformational journey themselves. 

I would not say that I am a gifted leader. Because leading what I saw in my spirit was not an option I did my best to learn. I worked hard at learning what a Christ submitted leader was and how they should lead and respond. I worked hard to understand that the way the “world” leads is different than the way Christ calls us to lead. As a Christ-following leader, Christ is the lead leader and I follow his lead. As a Christ-following leader I am a servant leader, meaning that for me to lead is for me to serve. When I of necessity lead, I do not seek to achieve the things that I want, the things best for me, but I seek to serve Christ and those who depend upon me to be a good leader for the sake of Christ and them. 

As a Christ-following leader I am a transformational leader. Jesus’ leadership was about leading people toward personal and spiritual transformation. I cannot transform anyone but I have learned that if I lead like Jesus I can cause transformation in someone else by leading them to the source and resource of transformation. As a Christ-following leader my only focus is serving the mission of Christ and leading in such a way as to accomplish the mission while simultaneously lifting, nurturing, encouraging, and causing Holy Spirit initiated transformation in their lives.