I have a confession – I tend to live as if I believe the cliché, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” For me, this means that I confront challenges directly. I assess the situation, determine a solution, roll up my sleeves, and get it done. Honestly, that has served me pretty well in my career, both in business and in the church.
But more and more I find myself asking the question, “Am I leaving room for God, or have I left Him out of this process?” Many years of education, training, and life experience have taught me to rely on myself, and only go to God as a last resort. It’s easy to do this in a second chair role. Many competing demands scream for attention. And they’re usually not saying “Seek God in this” – they just say, “Fix it now!”
For second chair leaders, I believe the best answer is a balancing act in which we do both. God called us to be good stewards of all that He has given us, and that includes our abilities as problem-solvers and gap-fillers. But He also wants us to be dependent on Him, to ask Him for wisdom and for His power to be made perfect in our weakness. So in the future, I hope you’ll find me in my chair AND on my knees.
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1 comment:
Such a great point, about making sure that we seek God in all that we do in the second chair. I know that I'm in position in part because of my skills to solve problems and make things happen, but I've recently caught myself thinking..."So What? Is this a logical solution or something that advances God's Kingdom?"
I think that logical solutions can come from God, and that as we honor him with our minds through study and experiancce he can give us an answer without a bright light, but we can also arrive at solutions without involving Him in the process. When that begins to take place, we've got to pull the emergency break and reconstruct our problem-solving process.
On a side note, I was thrilled to find this book, then the website, and now the blog, as I am someone who loves to interact with the material and the people involved in the same situations that I am. I hope that you both continue to post regularly, as I'll be waiting to respond and dialouge back and forth. Praise God for this book and these fraternity of second chairs sharing their experiences...I think it's saving my soul from being harded or embittered against my senior and our relationship. Thank you all very much.
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