Day 24

Someone's watching
Who are your spiritual leaders? Who are the people you turn to when you are struggling with the big questions in life? Periodically, I ask people these questions. The list is usually comprised of two equally sized groups: people that are highly visible or in leadership positions and people who hold no office, serve on no committees and aren't likely to have stood up to speak in front of the congregation or even a small group. in the church.

Instead of trying to get those 'stealth' leaders to serve or lead a committee, my goal is two-fold. First is to watch and see what I can learn from them about spiritual leadership. The second is to nurture and support them.

When I tell people in this latter group that others see them as spiritual leaders, their responses vary from surprised, embarrassed, self-effacing and disbelief. Most, immediately launch into a list of reasons why they couldn't be someone's spiritual leader. Authentic humility is one true sign of a spiritual leader.

Like it or not, whether you signed up for it or not, you may be the person that someone or several someone's look to when life starts to spin out of control. Knowing that, may be what helps some of us pay attention to what kind of Christian discipleship we're modeling for others.

You don't have to have a degree, an ability to quote scripture or letters after your name to be someone's spiritual leader. Remember Isaiah's description of God's peaceable kingdom? "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."

May each of us model our faith for the world today, and may those watching only see us when we are doing it well, by the grace of God.