Leader God Desires

In his book Gary McIntosh argues that basically, the Leader which God desires has shown these three complementary traits. First, knows Him. Second, Know His desires. Third, Announce His desire to Others. Simple as it states by Gary, however, profound will be in in application and our effort to make those things happened. When we talk about knowing God as the very first point of desiring God truly, we cannot separate the discussion of knowing self and Knowing Text. We know ourselves through the text, and we come to the text with the attitude of knowing self as it was first revealed from the text of the Scripture. Both are in constant circular motion that give us a grandeur picture of knowing Him. 

As we know ourselves and know our text, we found that we are only a sinner that need the mercy so badly and hence, we come to know with humbleness that the very essence of the Gospel, God is our savior. We also can further say, knowing God need to be done not just deeply but also intimately. Intimately means that we know God through the process of the whole journey of Christian piety and worship deeply. All those things lead us to the deeper satisfaction and deeper appreciation of His presence and might act in the universe and in us. We could then also conclude that we come to know God primarily from the text, through our recognition of our self in the light of the text, and last but not least then our interaction with the otherness in our world (Fellow human being, animal & nature).

Second, knowing His desire is one of the things that God really desires. In the Bible, God says that David was a "man after God's own heart." According to the Bible, David was not perfect, he did commit really heinous sins, Murder and adulteries. Yet, God called Him with that wonderful title because in David's life, he know the utmost desire is to make God known, worshipped and respected by all people. Even after He sin against God, he quickly repent. Base on this, we can say he is the definition of true great man of God. Mark Rutland in his book David the great argue for the definition of greatness that is really different from the world definition of greatness. People like Herod can be said as great because of He was a great builder. He build  massive castle of Him called Herodium, which was 45 M tall. No wonder, in his time, he was called as Herod the great. Alexander the Great also was called great because of His military record and expansions. From Asia to Africa. From Greece to India. 

However, in God's sight both were not great in the truest sense because they both have not faith in God, and most importantly, they did not seek to desire what God desire. All Herod and Alexander did was to build their own statues. This attitude was contrary to what David did. We can see for example how David wanted to Build God a special temple after all the good things He has been received from God. The word good here for David, of course, are including victory and defeat moments. For All things work for good through what John Piper says, "purposeful sovereignty." Indeed, David know that therefore, he can still rejoice in every circumstances. He really know the desire of  the good God that will prevails eventually as David declare in Psalms 16:2: "I say to the Lord, You are my Lord, apart from You I have no good thing." (NIV).

The last point is the things that the great leader does that He communicate what God desires. This dimension of communicating is very deep. Including vision, mission, values and purpose of God that need to be translated from the text, shared and also, inspiring and kindling people heart to move forward. In other words, to influence others to be a leader that follow the three step process of knowing, desiring and sharing, just like the leader and perhaps, even better. Nothing can be said much that most people will agree that leader basically can be summarized in this word, "influence." In many leadership courses and lectures, the influence of leader is usually defined through their integrity, how he handle conflicts, how he manage in the midst of Crisis or getting things done very well. But few, are talking about how they are the one who passionately announcing God's desire in a broad or specific context. This idea of announcing God's desire is so exuberant. A prophetic kind of task, we might say. Prophetic here not about fore-telling but about "truth-telling". True Christian leader do not lead people to what we think as good or what they think good but to lead others to what they "ought" to go, to help others to discover God's desire in their own lives that is so unique, sacred and special. And often time, this can be done if the leader willing to spent enough time to be silent, reflect His Word, pray and always keep on asking on God's desire toward His people. This is the leader that God desires, not the busy leader of non-essential, that keep on doing so many things that are irrelevant!