Sweet! aka my first devotional post

So this is pretty cool! I'll try and blog a bit just for the heck of it. Not that there's really anyone who will read my blog...

I guess that I should start my blog off on the right foot. God's been talking to me lately about Gideon. Gideon starts off as the youngest in his father's house. He is therefore a consumer. But at the same time, because of the attacks of the enemy (mideanites) he had to rise up and become a producer. That is why in Judges chapter 12 we find him threashing wheat behind (or in, depending on your translation) the wine press. God talks to him and tells him that he is producing and he has surplus, but God wants him to rise up to a new level and take the mantle of leadership and become a person of super-surplus, having a continual flowing in and out of the Holy Spirit in his life and into the lives of the peopel around him, meeting the needs of not just few but many.

Lately Pastor Ben has been talking to me about becoming a leader of leaders. I started meditating on that concept and it occured to me. There are so many diffrent kinds of leaders and places that they are all in that you need to have a super surplus in order to meet them all. There are some people who are born leaders and want to lead, but they have no place to lead and they need a leader of leaders to help them facilitate their leadership takents. A good biblical example would be Paul. Other people want to lead but don't have the skills needed and so they need guidance from more experianced leaders. Then there are the ones like Gideon, who are called to leadership but don't really want it. They need to be led out, trained, encouraged, etc. and that is anotehr function that a leader of leaders would have to provide.

On the other hand, being a leader of leaders doesn't mean adding more stress to an already stressful position. By leading leaders, I think you actually lessen your stress because leaders, you would hope, are responsible or at least more so than followers. This in itself decreases your worrying about tasks being finished or done right. Again this is just speculation, I think a leader of leaders does have to work harder but at the same time God will provide them with more strength, more energy, and more wisdom. I know from experiance that on Wednesdays when I am on my way to church I am exhausted after a long day of school (7:30am-4:30pm). But as soon as I see the church, its like seeing your house after a long vacation. Literally the second I step into the building I feel the presence of God energizing and restoring me for the night and really for the next few days that energized feeling will stick with me.

In the end, by saying "become a leader of leaders" Ben may have simply meant something like, "Get a couple of guys in the cafe that can do what you do and delegate." But from what God has been speaking to me, especially in a Gideon sort of way of stepping out of my comfort zone, rising up a new level where I am not just producing for thsoe around me but for everyone that comes in contact with me, and becoming a leader that God has called me to be, I think its time that I start picking up the mantle that has lain in the dust for so long. Right now, I don't feel that I have the time to increase my boundries as Jabez said, but I think that God works that way. He gives you a small area to work with, and just when you have gotten to the point where you are barely using 100% of your resources he takes you up another level and gives you even more I think that way you never do what you do out of your own strength or resources but know that you are always doing it all simply by God's grace and provision. If God calls me up higher, which I feel he has been the last month now, then I will rise up, and trust him to give me the time, the energy, the resources, the strength, and the wisdom.

So thats my deep thought of the day, er week. I will probably only be posting on Mondays and Wedesdays so yeah until Monday.