To state things simply, a man is made to lead. This is a God given, innate desire and calling for every man, but becoming a strong spiritual leader does not happen by chance. This would be the obvious place to start listing things you should do, like reading your Bible daily, praying daily and meeting with a weekly men’s group who will challenge and encourage you. While these are key ingredients, I’d like you to consider another approach.
If you read the title and thought there was room for you to grow as a spiritual leader, the first step is deciding to. You will be finished reading this in the next 60 seconds, and it will be very easy to move on with your day without changing anything. Nothing is more difficult than change. Nothing is more difficult than doing something one way for an extended period of time and then stopping and restarting. I get that! I’m challenging you to do something every man needs to. Decide right now you are going to become a stronger spiritual leader for yourself and your family.
If you said yes to the challenge, increasing your intimacy with God is the next step. You can do the practical things listed above, but these disciplines without intimacy with the Father wither in time. Without relationship you will find yourself at the beginning of each year renewing old resolutions. Revelation 2:5 “…Repent and do what you did at first.” This is the path to spiritual growth.
So if intimacy is key, how do I increase it? Great question! How would you go about increasing intimacy with your wife and children? The answer is obvious isn’t it? TIME. Your spiritual leadership becomes stronger in proportion to your time spent with Jesus.
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Acts 4:13 I want that said of me! How about you?
When does the most important part of your day start? At least five days a week you are spending the majority of your waking hours at work. During any given day there are tasks you perform that are routine, and others that can be stressful due to the importance associated with them, but I believe your most important work starts at the end of the day… when you pull the car into the driveway or garage and turn off the ignition. Typically, there’s a deep breath because your workday is finally done, and you can relax, right?! The truth is, your most important work is just about to begin.
We have all heard how our relationship with our Dad has a lot to do with our relationship with God as our Heavenly Father. And in the vast majority of story’s I’ve heard the father son relationship has had a negative impact on their relationship with God. As you know, there are so many stories of betrayal, abuse, abandonment and just non-engaged silence.
Sometimes we make a promise to a child and then life happens. The commitment, that promise then gets mixed in with the busyness of our lives. Somehow we start prioritizing all that we are juggling and the promise get postponed and sometimes retracted or forgotten. A broken promise to a child is the same thing as a lie. Broken promises will destroy your relationship with your child. (And others for that matter) I know from firsthand experience. Today I have a good grasp on the importance of this but with my first child I blew it. I’m grateful that God has restored that relationship and if you’ve blown it, own it and make it right. It’s never too late. Start today! As fathers this has a lot to do with how our children will approach and trust God (
My story is different. While my Dad was a strict disciplinarian and that combined with my rebellious teenage years was a recipe for much pain and heartache he was always true to his word. If he said we were going to do something, we did it. If he said I was punished for ‘x’ number of weeks he meant it and never did I get off a day early… I hated that! His level of integrity is rare and it is a blessing to his children. I cannot recall a time when he has let me down. Keeping his word down to the smallest detail is his greatest gift to me. I trust him implicitly. It is no coincidence that I trust God even more. I am so confident that God will keep His promises because my Dad modeled that so well for me. I am convinced that God’s plan for me is to give me a hope and a future because all along my Dad represented that to me.
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