Spiritual Life

Both experienced and emerging leaders dealing with weariness will hopefully find encouragement in this nugget of pure gold – George Mueller’s description of his daily practice of spending time with the Lord. In his day, Mueller raised the equivalent of millions of dollars in funding, which he used to build and run several large orphanages for many years, entirely by faith. These are Mueller’s words.

To be unhurried like Jesus is to abandon outcomes to God. You’re not trying to make anything happen. You’re not trying to get anyone to do anything. You’re waiting on God. You’re patient. You’re free to enjoy the moment, love God and be loved by God, and love your neighbor.

What does it look like when God’s Spirit is poured out on a people willing to surrender everything back to Him? There seems to be some common characteristics that mark these times of extraordinary fellowship and the palpable presence of God. This is a glimpse of the Christian community that will stand and boldly proclaim the name of Jesus in our age.

When you next encounter someone who is proclaiming a false christ, or someone who announces their belief in no Christ at all, have the confidence of your convictions to ‒ instead of arguing or debating ‒ lead in prayer and in spiritual authority. Then, in a moment of faith, trust that the living, breathing, all-consuming Jesus Christ will emerge in the moment to lovingly confound every spirit of darkness.

It seems that like breathing, we can all rest naturally; but to perform at our peak, we can all learn to do it better. It turns out that we have to work at taking deliberate rest. What do you do to rest and recover? How do you detach from your work?

For most of my life, I was one of the "good guys" praised by family and friends. Now that I've lost everything they were so proud of in me, I am not considered much. Not even my accumulated years of goodness count at this stage.

We struggle to rest. Even on vacation, we can be restless. Why?

A beautiful parable of suffering. Read this if you would serve in leadership.

There is a list of unending task that needs to be done. We get overwhelmed and stressed out. Sadly at times, our tiredness and irritability because of too much work pressure shows in how we deal with our daily lives.

I don’t believe God is personally responsible for every pain we endure. Sometimes God does inflict pain in order to discipline us – just as parents discipline children.

Leaders need to be able to say no, but many find it a hard thing to do. When we think of our marvellously creative Lord, we tend to think of His creativity as a resounding YES. This is correct, but let us also be creative in saying NO when we need to, so we can say yes to the Lord’s best for us.

Believers should be the most generous people on earth. Give something to someone in need this week, then wait for God to surprise you.