What were Samson’s values? It did not come out clearly in the story. He knew how to fight. Beyond that, it is not clear what direction Samson intended to move at any time. He did not seem to be following a vision, because he cast no vision for anyone to follow. He seemed incapable of mobilizing the people of Israel to join in his fights.
Effective leadership takes a potent mix of abilities and attitudes, and not just social position. Secondly, the perfect can be spoilt. With extravagance, negligence, recklessness and lack of mental control. Leadership requires that we carefully balance our emotional, spiritual and social lives. Seeking and handling of power always demands the personal subjugation of the powerful, or you can destroy a perfect situation.
You have to learn to live in your space that is threatened by contrary people. You are the one who must learn to strengthen your stakes, lengthen your cords, deepen your pillars and make it impossible for contrary people to win whatever trouble they brought.
He had found the key to stardom. A healthy disregard for unfavorable circumstances and people who imagined that circumstances made the man. They did not. Men created their own circumstances. It took an appreciation that one needed others and so the art of collaboration was another key to winning in life.
Closely related to laziness is the temptation that empty hands place on us. For if you do nothing and get nothing, how do you take care of your needs? Many turn to the abuse of things they were meant to take care of. Corruption is the lifestyle of the reckless, negligent and incompetent. For when they find their hands empty of gain, reward and benefit, they turn to the siphoning of what does not belong to them.
Sometimes God speaks loudest when He leaves words out. As children of God who listen to God through the words of the Bible, it is important to note that the mentoring directions of the Holy Spirit come not only from the text of what the scriptures say, but also, what they leave unsaid.
After Gideon’s colorful leadership and the trauma-inducing events following his death, Tola and Jair led Israel for fifty- five years. The work of these two men over fifty-five years is covered by exactly four verses in the Bible. The fifth verse clarifies the significant social bankruptcy that followed the insignificant leadership of these two men. What made the lives and times of these two men so disregarded by the chronicler of the book of Judges? The extreme destructiveness of laziness and corruption in leadership is highlighted in Series 23.
Gideon was a great follower of God’s strategic instructions. This was a leader who understood the importance of a winning strategy and planning of battles. He was happy to engage with strategies, no matter how bizarre. That engagement with unusual strategies brought him high successes.
Someone put it this way – ‘your attitude is speaking so loudly I cannot hear your words’. This is the burden of validity and acceptance in leadership. Leadership demands authenticity. And authenticity demands that we make every effort to align what we feel internally with what we are expressing outwardly. The result is integrity.
A leader cannot take the trappings without yielding the benefit of the place you occupy. That is why a full leafed fig tree without fruit has no business standing in the space. You will not be a legitimate leader if you don’t rise up to the call of the times – at work, at home, in ministry, and with any group. Validity comes from weaving coherence into different times and seasons.