Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. Exodus 13:21-22

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way,” goes the shibboleth. When God told Moses to lead, he would have been perfectly content to just get out of the way. Forty years before, Moses was ready to lead, but God knew he wasn’t really ready. “Take a few more laps around the desert,” God suggested, and for 40 years, Moses did just that. When the time finally came for Moses to be a leader, he wasn’t interested. But there is one thing which you need to know: When Moses did lead, 2.5 million people followed him.

Leadership is an awesome task, nothing to be taken lightly. From a Christian perspective leadership is substantially different from what it is in the secular world. One of the anomalies of Christian leadership is that God often picks individuals who have little to recommend them in the natural and selects them to lead. Lacking are good family connections, an education, and natural talents such as confidence, the ability to make decisive decisions, and vision. God knows that he who lacks much, trusts much, too. A leader needs to know where he is going, right? After all, an old Arab proverb says, “An army of sheep led by a lion is more powerful than an army of lions led by a sheep.” But from God’s perspective, it doesn’t necessarily work that way.

If you really believe the Lord is leading, you don’t have to see the whole plan. You only need to see the next step, because a leader is also a follower. That’s one of the lessons Moses had to learn. God gave him what we would like—something visual to follow, a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. When he saw either the cloud or the pillar of fire change directions, all Moses had to do was to say, “Break camp; let’s move,” and the people followed him.

But after Moses left Egypt, within only a few days they encountered trouble—big trouble, too. The pillar of fire and the cloud led them into a box-canyon situation with the Red Sea on one side, mountains on the other, and the army of Egypt fast closing the distance in the rear.

God knew what He was doing, just as He knows exactly what He is doing when He allows you to get boxed in by circumstances that look like disaster. Remember, God knows the way through the waters, no matter how deep or how turbulent, and when you really believe that He is leading you, no matter how grim the circumstances may be, all you have to do is to move when He moves and stop when He stops, and be patient, very patient.

Do you know what your problem is? You are a problem solver by nature, and when you get into trouble, you reason, “Doing something is better than doing nothing!” You aren’t sure God is capable of handling this so you decide to help Him out. You get into trouble every time. Moses did. Abraham did. Peter did. And I do as well.

Leaders have to do things, right? Not necessarily. At times leaders have to wait. But waiting is lost time, wasted energy, and non-productive, right? Wrong. Waiting refines and sharpens your senses. It helps you understand your absolute dependence upon the Almighty. It makes you realize that without God, you are a zero minus, a circle with the zero rubbed out. Jesus was so pointed, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Sometimes the hardest part of leadership is waiting until God says, “Move it!” and then you follow. No person can lead who has not learned to wait, and to follow. When something inside suggests, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way,” it may well be time to step back and decide whether you are following cleverly disguised plans of men, or you have heard the voice of God and are following Him. That makes the difference.

Resource reading: John 15.