Leadership on the Mind

I was reading a little bit of lifehack.org the other day and ran across this article on leadership.

The article is an interesting read, but what struck my attention was this paragraph:

Leadership seems to be on everyone’s minds one these days. Educators talk about “teaching leadership”, religious and charitable organizations host “leadership development” programs , businesses invest heavily in “leadership training”.

It's true isn't it? Everywhere you look seems to be someone else doing leadership training or developing leaders around them etc.

Is this a relatively new thing? It seems that is has been around most of my life but then I'm only 22.

Is the leadership development stuff we do today formalizing informal things from the past?
Is it something new that we had over looked? A passing fad?

Any thoughts?

Seeds 2 - Finances

In my last blog post I talked about seeds of plans that God has put in us. How they take time to grow, and often need to endure hardships to get there.

Today I want to tackle another Christian 'seed' analogy. This time it relates to finances...

Recently Clive wrote about this in his blog series on "Prepare to Prosper" by Joyce Meyer
Here is a quote from Joyce's book:

"God has been showing me that many people sow without ever enjoying the harvest He would love to give them because they are not properly caring for the seed sown."

Clearly a seed analogy there.
Here is Clive's Comment:

Joyce believes that a key missing element in why we don't see our financial seed (giving) come to harvest is because we have not watered our seed.

As much as I love Clive, I'm not so sure that I agree with him (and Joyce).
When you plant a seed, you expect a harvest but what kind of harvest do you expect? One of the same type as a the seed you sow of course!

Many people make the mistake that because they are sowing seeds by giving, then they should receive a financial harvest. Money for Money right?

I don't think so, I'm willing to be proven wrong but I think when you sow into the kingdom of God, you are doing just that, sowing into God's purpose.
When we give money to a church or Christian organization, It is like we have exchanged that money for some 'kingdom seed' and planted that in the ground. Our seed grows to produce some more of God's kingdom not some more cash.

I'm not trying to say that God doesn't want to bless us, or prosper us financially. I'm just thinking that if he does that, it is probably because doing anything to further God's kingdom attracts his blessing. Not because some seed has matured and we are reaping a harvest.

If you want breakthrough in your relationships, you need to work on your relationships, if you want breakthrough in your finances, you need to work on your finances, if you want breakthrough in your love for others, try loving others? It is no good working away in one area and expect to see God change us in another. As we know (for some reason) God likes to do things here on earth through us, he even works through us on us!

I happen to believe that giving money away makes good financial sense. It forces us to live within the money that we have because we need to use some of it to give away. I also think it makes sense to save money, earn interest, or invested it. That is planting financial seed, seed that will reap a financial harvest. As James MacPherson said this morning, Nigerians who want to give us millions of dollars or pyramid marketing schemes are not God's financial plan for your life.

Have you ever heard people talking about how to find the perfect spouse? Be the perfect spouse.
I think that kind of analogy works here, If you want to attract the blessing of God, be the kind of person that God wants to bless. Who does he want to bless? Those he knows you will use his blessing to further his kingdom. Anyway that's a message for another day...

I know what I have said is a little different to what we are often taught. Have a got it all wrong? Do I miss the point somewhere?

I'd love to hear from you, just leave a comment or send me an email: james@jambe.cjb.net