faithrunner

One of the hardest parts of leading is admitting you made a mistake, living with the consequences of that miss-take, and keeping followers on mission after you make it. Leaders are human, and no matter our training, experience, or talents, we can't see everything and we can't be right 100% of the time. This truth is why I appreciate the story about Joshua in in Bible . In Joshua 9 , we read how the leader of Israel was deceived into making a treaty with an enemy whom he would have destroyed. While the cleverness  of the enemy to survive is interesting, the better part of the story is how Joshua exhibited character in the midst of his failure as a leader . Read the story here . Here are some leadership lessons from this experience in Joshua's life. Take responsibility for your actions. Joshua did not play the blame game or whine he had been deceived, nor did he get into the politics of blame and point his finger at the elders who ratified the treaty by oath. ...

As we continue to read through the Old Testament as part of our year-long reading of The Story , the blood, gore, and annihilation we read about disturbs many of us . Isn't this sort of thing the very reason we are bombing Libya as I type and why we invaded Iraq and why troops remain in Afghanistan? The killing of innocent people cannot be tolerated in a civilized, free society.   If this is so, then, how do we resolve God's actions under the old covenant with the God we know through Jesus in the new covenant? Let me refer you back to an earlier post where I tried to explain "the anger of God" in the OT . I equated God's anger toward Israel to a parent's loving anger as he or she parented a rebellious teenager. We can get that. But what about the slaughter of indigenous people under Joshua and the Judges' leadership, for example? That's a bit harder to get your head and heart around than a frustrated God with his defiant people. Here's a...