Remembering What Really Matters

As promised, we have a brand spankin' new Spill the Beans for you, a fashionable one day late, thanks to the holiday weekend. :) We think you'll like the stories though. Worth the wait, right?

Listen here!

Ryan and I have been reading through Ezekiel lately on our chronological pilgrimage through the Bible. I don't know if you've spent a lot of time reading Ezekiel, but it's kind of a hard book. Not hard to comprehend, but hard in content. It was a rough season for God's people - and that's actually a mild and generous description. I don't know that things had ever actually been worse for them than they were in that moment. 

More than a few things have convicted me as I read, but one thing smacked me in the head. There's a chapter where the Lord comes down harshly (and rightfully so) on the leaders of that day, because they were leading the people astray.

They were leading. 

People were following.

And everyone was going the wrong direction. 

How heartbreaking! And yet, I see some of that very same thing happening around me. I had a conversation with one of my friends this week about writers who gain these huge followings, yet their words don't always speak truth. 

They're leading. 

People are following. 

But are they all going in the right direction?

These writers are a marketing dream. They've done everything right in building their platforms, resonating with readers, and making it easy for books to fly off the shelves. 

But are they speaking truth into lives?

This is what convicts me. I'm not a marketing dream. I probably haven't done much of anything right in the eyes of consultants and algorithms. 

But my deep desire is to never have God say of me, "she led my people astray." 

Ryan and I are speaking at a leadership conference this month, and one of our biggest hopes as we address these leaders is to impress on them the magnificent importance of focusing on the Lord. Not on numbers. Not on innovation. Just Jesus. 

You may not be a writer or church leader, but you're probably leading someone somewhere. (Maybe you don't even know these people are following you!) Lead well. Lead with God's perspective in mind, not algorithms and numbers.