FLIC in Fatherhood

Spiritual leadership is tested when the people you love are afraid and you cannot make the problem disappear. In Numbers 14:1-4, Israel wanted to return to slavery rather than face the opposition in the promised land. For Father's Day, Pastor Josh drew four qualities of leadership from that crisis. They apply to fathers and to anyone called to influence others in a family or house church

Crisis Exposes the Hidden Qualities

The spies agreed that the land was good. They brought back its fruit, yet the size and strength of its people overwhelmed them. Israel wept, blamed Moses and Aaron, and wanted another leader to take them back to Egypt. Survival in slavery seemed preferable to trusting God with the next step.

Rejection hurts when it comes from people you have invested your life in. Fathers can feel that inadequacy too, wondering whether they earn enough or command any respect at home. At least their children cannot vote for another father.

Every man always deals with a crisis. Every leader deals with a crisis.

Pressure exposes what stays hidden when life goes well. One of our shepherds had parents who migrated to Australia without English or qualifications and faced repeated crises while providing for their family. The way a leader responds under those conditions reveals the qualities that others need to see.

Vision to See the True Reality

Moses and Aaron fell on their faces. Joshua and Caleb urged the people to see what God had promised (Numbers 14:5-8). They had seen the same land and the same opposition as everyone else. They also recognised the God who had brought them this far.

Because being positive takes guts. Being positive, being optimistic takes faith. It takes vision.

Pessimism can offer a safe place to stand. If things go wrong, we can say we were right all along. Faith takes the risk of bringing hope to people who are frightened, because it includes God's faithfulness in its understanding of the situation.

This kind of positivity needs more than an optimistic personality. Leaders can overpromise and underdeliver. Joshua and Caleb's confidence rested on God's promise to give them the land. For us, confidence rests on what Jesus has already done on the cross. His love does not depend on our doing something more to earn it.

A father or shepherd can look honestly at a difficult situation and still bring hope. Come to Christ again, and let that faith shape what the people in your care hear from you.

Ushering the Presence of God

Joshua and Caleb's appeal did not settle the crowd. The people wanted to stone them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting (Numbers 14:9-10). Even a leader's faithful words could not replace the presence of God.

Bringing people into God's presence begins with our own relationship with him. A family needs to see that we come to Christ when a crisis arrives. Children watch how we handle trouble, and those repeated responses become part of the culture of a home.

People don't do what they were told. People do what they saw.

Trust grows when people can see that our relationship with God is real. The same applies in a house church. Personality and confidence cannot carry the people we lead. We need to wrestle with God's word and allow it to speak into our own lives. Authentic intimacy with God is something a spiritual leader must fight for.

Pursuing the Glory of God

When God spoke of destroying the people and beginning again with Moses, Moses pleaded for them. The Egyptians and the surrounding nations had heard what God had done. If Israel died in the wilderness, they would say the Lord could not bring his people into the land he had promised (Numbers 14:13-16). Moses cared about God's glory.

That gives spiritual leadership its priority. We love our children, yet even our family's comfort cannot be the highest aim of our lives. We were made in God's image to reflect his glory. Full life in Christ reaches beyond a car, a house or a little more luxury.

God has no insecurity about who he is. He knows his own glory and the value of the people he made. Even when humanity rejected him, he continued his work of bringing people back. The waiting father in the prodigal son story gives us a picture of that love.

Our children may take years to understand what God has made them for. As they become adults, we must pray and let them work through the life before them, while continuing to point them towards God's glory.

Grit of Intercession

Please pardon the iniquity of these people according to the greatness of your steadfast love.

Moses pleaded for the people who had rejected his leadership. His appeal rested on God's steadfast love (Numbers 14:17-19). Their failure became a reason to ask for mercy again.

Intercession means bringing the people we love before God, and it requires perseverance. We can pray for a child, see no change and feel ready to give up. A shepherd can feel the same frustration when someone will not listen or come to house church. Continuing to pray takes grit.

Just keep on coming back to the presence of God.

Jesus gives us the reason to keep returning. He faced the cross and submitted to his Father's will. He loved us through that crisis and gave his life for us. These qualities of leadership grow out of what he has done for us. We can keep asking God to show his mercy when our own strength has run out.

You Are the Gatekeeper

Pastor Josh's daughter Skye and her husband PM recently became shepherds and wanted a bigger house so they could host more people on Tuesday nights. Both of them had watched that welcome at home for years. What we practise over the years gives our children something to follow.

Israel had seen the Red Sea open and God's presence in the cloud and fire, yet they still resisted him. We can hear God's word and leave it unapplied. The people in our care need to see us respond to God and help them come to him again.

A gatekeeper decides what comes into the house. Lust, division and judgement can enter through the door we open. We can also choose to pursue God's glory and lead the people we love into his presence.

You are their father before I was their father.

That prayer recognises that God loves our children more than we can. He also loves the people who frustrate us and resist our care. When they fail, turn to God and keep praying for them.