Ice must first thaw to water before it can turn to steam and if a pot of water has even a small block of ice in it, it will not come to the boil or even attempt to come to the boil, until that last block of ice has thawed. Similarly, a tree will not produce fruit in its first few years. It must first establish roots, achieve height and spread its branches. Once the framework is sound enough to support the longer-term objectives, it will bear fruit. Well, do you think similar principles apply to leadership?
Nehemiah could not start building until he had established a framework on which to build. He understood the need for the priesthood and civil comforts, but none of that could happen without the walls. Good organisation had to lay the foundations of their future and that meant a new social contract and a new model or way of doing things.
The walls were for more than mere protection. They gave the people a center. They also symbolized their restoration and gave them a beacon of hope, whilst sending a very clear, unambiguous statement of intent to their detractors. Someone recently described a prophetic picture of a bird flying backwards, and added that if we are going on with God, we must turn around and face that future, move into it with conviction and never look back. When Israel crossed the Jordan they heaped up stones as a reminder that they had left their past, with all its wanderings and related struggles, behind them. When Jacob returned to Shechem, he set up a pillar of stones as a sign that he would never go back to what he had left, but also as a sign to his past that it would never be a feature of his future.
Good leadership must involve similar walls or heaps
, to separate us from the past and make a fresh start. “Unless the call is clear, how will the people know to follow”, stated Solomon. Well, when leaders take their people into a new way, they too dare not look back or allow the past to define the future. People like to hold onto the past for reasons of security and sentiment, but they dare not stay there else they will simply not progress. I am not alluding to the lessons or legacies of the past. Of course we learn from what went before and we honor the examples left to us the way Nehemiah built on their heritage: teh ancient mound of Jebus. However, to build into the future we must create a new wineskin if we ever hope to contain new wine. We need walls so we can move forward without watching our backs.
Help me here. Many would argue for the need to breakdown walls, but that may have a different connotation. What do you think? Can we progress without first building walls and should the framework precede other things like relationships, functions and so on?
(c) Peter Eleazar @ http://www.4u2live.net/
Image courtesy of: http://www.socialearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/FruitTree1.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment