Leadership Thought: What Does
Commitment Look Like?
Dear Family,
Commitment expresses itself in many forms. It is seen in Hernando
Cortez’s burning of all his 11 ships after landing in Veracruz, so that
he and his men had no place to go but forward.
It is revealed in missionary David Livingstone’s response to those
who wanted to join him on the mission field. When he was asked, “Have you
found a good road to where you are? If so, we want to know how to send other
men to join you.” He wrote back, “If you have men who will come only if they
know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there
is no road at all.”
But one of the most powerful expressions of commitment is found in
the life of the missionary Adoniram Judson who sweated out Burma’s heat
for 18 years without a furlough, and six years without a single convert.
Enduring torture and imprisonment, he admitted that he never saw a ship sail
without waiting to jump on board and go home. When his wife’s health broke, and
he had to put her on a homebound vessel in the knowledge he would not see her
for two full years, he confided in his diary: “If we could find some quiet
resting place on earth where we could spend the rest of our days in peace….,”
but he then concluded with this remarkable postscript, “Life is short. Millions
of Burmese are perishing. I am almost the only person on earth who has attained
their language to communicate salvation” (Regions Beyond, Vol 37, p 2 taken off
the Internet). Judson stayed and was instrumental in establishing a significant
Christian influence in Burma.
I will never forget the answer I read that one pastor once gave to
a woman who asked him to define the word commitments (she called it
consecration). Holding up a blank
sheet of paper, he replied, “It is to sign your name at the bottom of this
blank sheet, and to let God fill it in as He will.”
God calls us to commitment not comfort, service not slumber. When
Ananias was told by God to go and search out Paul, he was afraid, for he had
heard how Paul was persecuting believers in Jerusalem. But the Lord said, “Go,
and do what I say. For Paul is my chosen instrument to take the message to the
nations, and before kings, as well as to the people of Israel. And I will
show him how much he must suffer for me” (Acts 9:12-16).
The next time you and I are prone to complain about long hours,
hard work, little free time, or unrealistic expectations, let's allow our minds
to wander to one or two of the above examples, and ponder how little we really
know about what it means to accept the cost of commitment.
Jesus did not say, “Come to me and get it over with.” He
said, “If any man would come after me, let him take up his cross daily and
follow me.” Daily is the key word. “ Our commitment to Christ,
however, genuine and wholehearted it may be today, must be renewed tomorrow and
the day after that, and the day after that until the path comes at last to the
river.” Louis Cassels, Quotations from the Christian World, Edythe Draper, p
1541.
Today, let’s pray that God would forge our faith into a such a
steel like commitment that when tested by the challenges of those long hours,
hard work, high expectations and unreasonable people, it will stand the test
and abound to His glory.
Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
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