LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, November 21, 2024

I was taught a lesson in humility by my dad when I was 15 years old. By humility I am referring specifically to the kind of humility it takes to turn over the responsibility for an important task to someone less experienced. I was 15 years old, and we were on our way to Colorado for a family vacation in conjunction with a national church conference. We were going to be camping, so there was a big travel trailer hooked up behind the car. We had made good progress from St. Paul into Nebraska when dad looked in the rear view mirror and said, “John, do you want to drive?” 

I only had my learner’s permit at the time, but I was ready, except for that big camper behind us. I had driven the car plenty of times, but now there was an added difficulty with which I had no experience. But dad stopped the car, got out, and gave me the keys. WOW! He trusted me with the car and the camper and the lives of the family. He knew that the only way to become qualified for a task was to be allowed to do the task and gain experience. He was still a qualified driver. He was not unable to perform the task of driving, yet he humbly surrendered his rights for the sake of training the next generation of drivers knowing that they would need those skills when they were out on their own in the future. Thanks, Dad!

Moses has reached a point in his life where his leadership is coming to an end. God has sent him up to the top of a mountain to get a view of the Promised Land, a land that he would never be allowed to enter because of his sin. But before he goes, Moses asks God to reveal to him who the next leader of the Israelites would be. I think if I were in that situation, the first thought I my mind would have been to ask God to forgive me and remove the consequence of my sin so that I could go into the land. Maybe I would make excuses for why the sin wasn’t really all that bad and the consequence was unfair. It would certainly be a priority to try to maintain some control and to “stay in the driver’s seat.”

But not Moses. He was a humble man. His immediate attitude was one of humble submission to the plan of God and of concern for the ongoing leadership of the people. That speaks volumes about the attitude of his heart, but then God takes it one step further. We read in Numbers  chapter twenty-seven verse twenty that God tells Moses, “Give him some of your authority so the whole Israelite community will obey him.”  It’s one thing to be willing to step aside for someone else, but it is something much more humbling to be asked to take part in the training of that new person and turn over some or all of your authority.

Think of the applications of this lesson to our lives today. If you are a parent this defines your role in raising your children. We watch as they drop dishes on the floor trying to carry them; leave the blankets crooked on a bed they were trying to make; leave tools laying around the garage after using them; miss whole sections of lawn as they use the mower for the first time; and on and on goes the list. We seem to be able to humbly accept our responsibility to develop leaders in our families, so what has happened in our jobs and in our churches? Why do we have so many people greedily hanging on to positions of leadership when there is a whole generation of new leaders just waiting to use their skills and dreams to take us to new places of promise?

In your job, or in your church, are you a humble and willing participant in developing the next wave of leaders, even if that means not accomplishing a personal goal? Is our purpose self-fulfilling or Kingdom fulfilling? Let’s be the facilitators of growth by letting someone else drive for a while.

Pastor John