The world in which we live and lead has been changed by the experience and impact of the global pandemic. However, for me, the key question is:
How has the pandemic changed how we live and lead?
If we come out of the other side of COVID and continue to live and lead like it was still 2019 I believe we will have missed out on the opportunity that 2020 has presented to us … but if we press into 2021, embracing a new approach to life and leadership, then I believe we will not only continue to live and lead well but we will rise to a new level of confidence in what God has equipped us to do.
From my personal 2020 experiences I would suggest God may wish us to:
Live and Lead from a Place of Rest
When we are ‘at rest’ our actions and reactions are so much better.
I know that I have had to adjust my custom and practice significantly in recent years. Perhaps, like me, you come from a family background where the ‘natural’ disposition seems to be to worry. That is certainly my situation and it led me, on two occasions, to a point of complete emotional burnout.
I believe God would remind of the familiar words in Matthew 28: ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’
As the seasons change and as a new year approaches may we take the time to rest physically but also to rest from the striving that so often we find ourselves doing. After all, Psalm 23 tells us that: ‘the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures.’
2. Live and Lead from a Place of Confidence
Self-confidence is a poor substitute for God confidence.
Immediately you will be able to think of someone who certainly does not lack confidence in themselves. However, that is not the sort of confidence I believe God would have us walk in. I believe God is calling us to arise in these days with a confidence that comes from knowing who He is and knowing who we are in Him.
As we set aside time to rest in God’s presence, I believe our confidence in God grows and so too does the confidence with which we live and lead.
1 John 5:14 reminds us that: ‘This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.’
The confidence with which we live and lead does not come man but from God alone. Isaiah 32:7 tells us that ‘the fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.’
That is ‘God confidence.’
3. Live and Lead from a Place of Faith
Faith is the foundation of success, God’s way.
Recently I have seen a lot of people offering ‘success’ courses online, as if they had the formula for success. I do not doubt that what they may be offering is based on good principles but what I do know is that true success comes from God alone. The God kind of success comes through releasing our faith to believe in God, even when the circumstances we face in our families, organisations, businesses or communities may seem impossible.
Psalm 37:4 says: ‘Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Jeremiah 17:7 goes further when it says: ‘Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.’
Now that sounds like a success plan that I could follow!
4. Live and Lead from a Place of Impartation
Life is not all about you. It’s about the difference you make in others.
I believe God is calling us in these days to be people of impartation. People who receive an impartation of wisdom from God and people who them make it their purpose to impart that wisdom to other people within their sphere of influence. I truly believe that as we press into the post Covid season God will release His favour upon those who intentionally chose to impart Godly wisdom others.
A new generation is arising that needs to receive an impartation of wisdom from those who learned to live and lead through the tough seasons of life.
Let’s make it our 2021 goal to share the wisdom God has given us with others.
Be blessed,
Tommy