While I continue to study and write about grace and the law, I find that the social experiences I have are tempered with, not only the information that I am learning and have been for about 18 years, but also the socioeconomic consequences within the world. The main issue that I yearn for people to understand is that leadership is not management. Leadership is not limited to title or position in an organization. Leadership is founded in lived character traits. Character traits don't understand rank, position, titles, paychecks, clothes, cars, or any other man made means by which people decide another person's social status. A character traits merely illumine the inner training of a human being to the outer world. In short, they are the living results of a sacramental life.
Second to what leadership actually is, considering what love is sieved through a leadership colander is a better means through which to live with one another. We are told that Jesus said, by St. John the Divine in John 13:35, that "By this they will know that you are My disciples, that you love one another." This verse directly links leadership with love. However, if a reader has been taught that love is people pleasing and putting on a strong face in order to please Jesus and show that Christians love one another, then love and oppression have been confused. Lots of people confuse love and oppression just as they confuse leadership and management. Management, often, turns into micromanagement. The difference between guiding someone and oppressing someone is the retention of choice. Leaders empower choice.
Being a part of an English department creates a necessity to use words wisely as most people in the room are going to question that person's word choice or phrase regardless of what someone else says. Higher education has a defined hierarchy and often those who work as adjuncts are used as bargaining chips or as superfluous. This doesn't happen everywhere, but it does happen in some places. The test for it is if someone reading this says to themselves, "we treat our adjuncts right" or "we don't do that at our _____________," then your school has a problem. Nonetheless, Biblical leadership provides the measure through which to balance the mean colleagues and people in organizations intend upon finding was to micromanage another person's life.
Paul writes the Letter of Timothy primary about contending with false teachers. He writes, "These are the things you are to teach and insist on. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, then they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and think that godliness is a means to financial gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain" (NIV Tim 6:2-6).
When I got to the point in my life when I could honestly say, "I am content," people thought I was going crazy. I didn't want enormous house and all of the trappings that go with it. What did it for me was not chasing money and not trying to find ways to please other people. I know that when God looks at me; He sees ME. All of me. It seems to me that others are more bothered by my socioeconomic standing than I am. I will state it plainly. I know rich people, and I am poor. I know a lot of middle class people who are more concerned with my socioeconomic standing than the rich people I know. In another way of stating it, people with tenure are not worried about up and coming adjuncts.
So, Who's the boss?
People of faith do not have money because they are in God's favor. Money is an object; it's not God. Working to make decisions to decide what someone else should own is wrong. Constantly deciding that another person is not good enough because you are not content with your own life is wrong.
I am content. I play in dirt. I walk my dog. I color. I sing. I dance. I work. I write. I study. I sleep. I breathe... I belong.
I am content.
Contentment is one of the most difficult things to find. Busyness creeps in on our lives when we least expect it. The constant chase is not good for us. Looking at another person's life by examining what remains doesn't give the full value of the life or experience.
When I die, I want people to say that above anything else that I was content. It is better to hear from the afterlife that did not seek the approval of the world, but that I was content. That I was a man of godly character and love. That I lead without distinguishing one person's worth over another's. May people say that I was a leader with balanced scales and discernment. Perhaps by the time I die, I will be able to say that I grew content with the responsibility and trust that God had in me. May all of us.
I have been blessed with new work opportunities. It's wonderful to have them. I know want work and pay to become what I seek more than God. I would rather seek the heart of a Loving God than His creation. May I strive to lead in the work I have been given to do.
A prayer for the middle of the week:
God, give me contentment in my blessings. Let my blessings not turn to curses as I grow into these new responsibilities. Let these open doors bring joy, mercy, and above all, contentment in what has been bestowed on all in a similar situation. Let us all be in Your presence throughout the rest of the week. Hold us in your embrace to teach us contentment in Your Faith in us. Amen.
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