I practice the following leadership principles from mentor Marnie Swedberg. Great stuff!
1. I am uniquely created by God for a specific purpose.
God created only one model with my exact DNA. He specifically selected my parents, siblings, race, nationality, mental capacity, physical features and time in history. Like any responsible artist, architect, designer or inventor, God certainly had a precise purpose in mind before He went to all the trouble assembling me.
2. I use Jesus Christ as my role model.
I, like Jesus, want to do nothing from myself, independently, of my own accord, but only as I am taught by God and get His orders. Even as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just and right because I refuse to seek to consult my own will [my own aim, my own purpose], but only the will and pleasure of the Father who sent me. (John 5:30 AMP)
3. I live each day in the awareness that there is time to do everything God wants me to do.
There is not time to do everything; there is not time to do everything good or everything everyone else wants me to do; and there is definitely not time to do everything that “I” want to do. But there is time to do everything that God is asking me to do today.
4. I acknowledge that God is providing everything and everyone required for me to fulfill His purposes in my life.
Money, manpower and the means-necessary are provided (or withheld) to help me understand His direction and plan for my life. When finances are tight, I make different decisions than I would have if money was flowing. I receive this as God’s method of helping me know what to do when.
5. I recognize that every encounter is God’s providence versus mere happenstance.
God Himself is ordering my life: I enjoy blessings, not luck. My fate is not up for grabs but is secure in Christ. My coincidences are really God-incidents. I am led by God, not circumstances. Instead, God will use every situation to help me understand His activity in my life, if I will recognize His desire to do so.
6. I REFUSE to focus on negatives in myself, in others or in my circumstances.
I routinely analyze all negative influences in my life for object lessons and quickly run them the painful portions of each to the foot of the cross. I then visualize myself joining Christ on the cross, and there, through His power in me, I look at my offender (even if it is myself) and say, “Father, I forgive them. They don’t even know how badly they have hurt me.” Then, crawling down again, I move in a resurrected fashion through life, ready to extend God’s forgiveness to every offender (even if they do not yet realize their offenses).
7. I feed on God’s Word.
I have verse cards in my pockets, car, kitchen, desk drawer and on my mirror. My thoughts return to my current memory verse frequently as I meditate on the Bread of Life.
8. I breathe the air of prayer.
I pray frequently, and without ceasing. I can go a few days without water and a few weeks without food, but I cannot survive ten minutes without oxygen. Like a dolphin surfacing for air, I must frequently burst through the clouds of life into the Sonshine of God, through prayer, or I will begin to suffocate spiritually (defined: stress).
9. I take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
My alarm system goes off at the earliest signs of “self” sins including self-centeredness, self-indulgence, self-righteousness, and the mother of them all, self-pity. I trust God to show me all wrong thoughts, after which I give them to Christ, as if they were prisoners of war with which He must deal.
10. I praise God through every situation. No exceptions.
Everything that comes into my life, Satan wants to use to destroy me; but everything that comes into my life, God wants to use for my good. I refuse to wallow in disappointment, despair or self-pity, choosing instead to partner with God for His best in my life by moving immediately to praise. (Praising God through a devastating situation is called “the sacrifice of praise”.)
11. I follow the Leader, doing every NEXT STEP that God ordains for me.
It is impossible for God to take me from the comfort of my current position into the glory of battles won without first working me through boot camp. I recognize that every obstacle, set-back, disappointment and challenge are God-ordained as training tools to prepare me for my destiny in Christ. I receive them with joy and push through with determined faith and hope.
12. I resolve to be patient with His process – as I firmly believe that all the events of my life are interactive.
I trust God more than I trust a physician, who would readily cut me open rather than see me die. I trust God more than I trust a professor, who would willingly inflict a painful score on me rather than watch me miss the knowledge I’d need to succeed. I trust God more than I trust an employer, whose regular paychecks appear to sustain me. I trust God, no matter what!
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