As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. – Exodus 17:11

Today’s Scripture Reading (June 5, 2012): Exodus 17

One of my earliest lessons on leadership was that leadership was seldom something obtained by position. True leaders are created only by those who are willing to follow them. I have known a number of people who thought that they only needed position in order to lead. But the result is usually an empty and unproductive department. The adage is that if there is no one following you, you are nothing more than a person out for a walk. Leaders are created by their followers, and there is really no other way.

So, a good leader leads by being the visible example to those who choose to follow. I have to admit that there are a few ways right now that I wish I was a better leader; that is, I wish that people were following me a little more in some of the things that I am doing. But I realize two things about my leadership. I need to get better at inspiring those around me to be a positive difference in the world in which they live and I need to make sure that I am not leading in a vacuum – I need to make sure that I lead as people can see me.

Moses was the leader of Israel. He was never voted into the position. There was no search committee that was ever formed to go and search for the best leader that they could find. No invitation was ever issued by Israel to ask him to come and be their leader. In fact, in a strict sense there was not even a leadership position for Moses to fill. Moses became the leader of Israel because God called him, and because he became a visible symbol of all that God was trying to do in Israel.

So when the fledgling nation had to pick up arms to defend themselves against those that wanted to destroy them, Moses act of leadership was simply to remain visible. It seemed that as long as Moses was seen with his arms in the air, the people were reminded of what God was doing and the battle went well. But when he lowered his arms he became less visible and people floundered.

As leaders, we need to be seen by those around us. There are people around you that need to see you doing the right thing and, through your actions, receive the challenge to go and make this world a better place. We are all leaders of someone, and all of us have people around us that are just waiting to see what moves we are going to make, and hopefully through those moves be reminded of everything that God is doing in our world.

   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus 18