It is not a difficult lesson but it is vitally important as we exercise leadership no matter in what area of life we are leading.
We have to understand the difference between trust and belief. Leaders have to understand principles and situations which bother some but which leaders have to be able to overcome.
Is this not when trust and security and assurance and all these heavy and crucial words need to be part of our training.
Trust is so necessary in as much as you place your life and your hands and your faith, in Jesus Christ.
Belief flows in action when our trust is real and deep and placed in Jesus Christ.. To be secure in such a way as we are able to lead effectively we have to learn how to trust and believe.
Very few leaders in these days take time to consider how Almighty God would wish them to lead.
This is where real prayer can play such a vital role in the life of the leader.
There are times when it is difficult to believe and we have to trust in God. What are we to do as leaders when it is challengingly difficult?
I have to trust God, and it is as we trust God that we become assured and secure as we lead and give that example which people expect us to give.
Trust Him. Learn how to trust Him, when things are quiet, in minor areas to begin with.
Much of this is flowing from my recent time studying Psalm 125. Do take time and make time to read it.
The first songs in these Psalms of Ascent were centred on pilgrim’s journeys, but now Psalm 125 speaks of God’s surrounding protection around His people.
Leaders need to be surrounded and protected and to be so spiritually is invaluable.
Jerusalem was and is well protected geographically speaking, but at that time of the Psalmist, Zion represented the God surrounding His people.
It is good to have around you a solid impregnable wall.
The wall Jesus Christ had around Him was the Will of the Father and that was a pretty grim wall as we consider and think of His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.
What is our wall of protection? In Moses’ day it was walls of water piled up and Elisha’s wall was fiery chariots and horsemen of angelic origin, and Isaiah’s and Hezekiah’s was their resort to the Lord in prayer. They had spiritual insight.
Our wall of protection is Jesus Christ and The Word and Prayer, which is invisible to most people, and even to many in the visible church!
We can be confronted with challenges which we do not know we are going to handle them, and we came through them.
“Lord, I do not know what exactly You are doing, but I trust You.” Many have prayed that over the ages.
Many have had to speak these words in some form, and they have experienced God to be there, present and strong, and able to do whatever was needed.
God desires to give His people stability and security and rest, so that passive trust can flow into belief and action.
The world craves these blessings and seeks them in different ways, but never find them in a true or abiding form. There is a place where we may find all three.
Over these past weeks it has been an enriching experience to study these fifteen Psalms in that section called the Songs of ascent and this article flows from part of my researches in Psalm 125.
This level of assurance and security is pictured as Mount Zion, and as a city, and that city to which the pilgrims were ascending was Jerusalem.
Of course, now, today, God dwells by His Holy Spirit, in the lives of those who truly believe in Jesus Christ. That has to be the priority.
Our sins are washed away in the blood Jesus Christ shed on Calvary’s Cross. Our sin is forgiven and then, and only then, can we experience God’s peace.
Flowing from our stability in Christ Jesus there comes a security and a rest.
And then, there come that very exciting day when you realise that you are no longer the flighty one you were, up one day and down the next, like a yo-yo, all over the place, on emotional highs and then sunk in the depths.
As you are trusting and as you continue to trust Him, you discover yourself becoming established in Christ.
Do we live now as people who truly belong to Zion? If this is a problem or a question or an issue for someone, then Psalm 125 is for you.
We have to be very careful in this whole area, that our confidence is not placed in self, and not in things, but in God.
The Holy Spirit has done a work within, and there is a solid faith and belief which was not there previously, when we might have been wondering, and even worrying because of the wondering.
Those in positions of leadership can benefit tremendously because this is God’s answer for the problems of the world and this is God’s method of transforming men and women into the type of people He would have us become!
Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children’s Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.