So this is probably the 5th blog that I have attempted to write this month. As you can tell none of them have past the test to actually be posted… But God knew that the best had yet to come. So as promised I am here to share about what God has showed me this month about leadership but not only that this is something that can be taught and used in everyone’s life.
This month has been so different then our other months. I mean this month has been the month where I have felt myself grow in my faith the most. I came into this month wanting to be a leader for my team. But was really confused as to why they picked me for this month. What did my team see in myself that I didn’t? I viewed myself as a follower and could never lead a team. But I am leaving this month feeling filled with what God has given me and taught me and truthfully if I had the opportunity to lead again I would (which is really funny for me to say). I pray you are also able to take things from this blog that God taught me!
One thing I have come to realize was that I have a voice. Yes, I know what you’re thinking everybody has a voice! You’re right everyone does have a voice. But not everyone uses their voice the way God intended them to. I never spoke up a lot in the past because I never thought my voice would be valued. I personally thought that other people’s ideas were way better then mine so I just would agree with what people would say and would go along with it. I never spoke up on group projects because I thought my opinion would be wrong and I didn’t want to look like a failure. So I would follow the leader. Whatever the leader said I would do it. I never wanted to be in the position of making a decision because I didn’t want to be turned down. Sounds really silly when I am writing this and I realize that now. But it’s how I lived my life and was totally okay with it, until I started leading a team.
Stephanie and I went for a walk one day by the Mekong River here in Laos. I told her something was bothering me and I never knew what it was. She has taken some inner healing classes before and so she started asking me questions. Long story short I ended up going through an inner healing process with her. I came to realization that I had a lot of stuff bottled up inside me that needed to come out so I could grow way more. As soon as the process was over God started speaking like I had never heard Him before. It wasn’t audible but it was pretty close!
He started speaking life into me He started throwing words at me in the inner healing process such as: belonging, a voice, discernment, worth, value, healing, freedom, joy, Holy Spirit, hope, passion etc. But you know what else was on that list… Leadership!
God started teaching me on trust and acknowledging Him. One morning we started meditating on Proverbs 3:4-6 as a team. We were going to write out this verse for one hour by ourselves and see what God teaches us. But the trick to this was writing this verse out with your non-dominant hand haha! We did it this way so we would spend more time on the verse each time we wrote it out because we would have to really concentrate. Each time I wrote it out I learned something new! The verse says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight!” The first 2 times I left out the words your, I never meant to leave them out it just happened like that twice! God was telling me that for so many years I never thought as my voice as valuable. But this month He was showing me how to think for myself and how to find my voice. He then got me to look up what trust even means. So I looked it up on google haha. Trust = relations have to be built on trust; good relationships are built on trust (meaning you can’t have a relationship with God if you can’t learn to trust Him). Synonyms were rely on, depend on, bank on, and count on. These words fit perfectly to the word trust. Trusting God is becoming completely dependent on Him! Lastly, this verse is the definition of trust, which I thought was super neat. Trust is if you acknowledge God in all your ways and you don’t rely on your own understanding. If you can do that you can trust God. You need to come to realization that you need to die to yourself daily to be able to completely trust and depend on God. We are unable to do anything out of our own strength because we are weak but through God we will be made strong.
To sum this up what did I learn in a couple sentences is that I am valued, my opinion does matter, I do hear from God, I do have the gift of discernment to hear His voice compared to my voice and to trust Him every single day because He knows what He is doing. Also, to acknowledge Him and that nothing I have is mine because He gave me everything I have. So He gets all the glory.
Take home content… YOU are valued, YOU are loved, YOU have a voice, and YOUR opinion does matter, so stop following the leader but instead come up beside the leader and grow together.
Love you guys,
Heidi 🙂
