Work, without that unnecessary Leadership

I wanted to find a way to tie this post with the previous post, but the topics were slightly too far apart despite both falling under the topics of work and leadership.  I've been reading in Proverbs recently and again came across the verses about the Ant and its hard work, which is related to the way of wisdom.  It is fascinating that the Ant is specifically lauded for doing this without a manager, particularly in light of the generally accepted wisdom regarding leadership being the hinge for everything, an example of which is found in the previous post.


But consider the Ants without a manager in this video:

Finally, some previous pondering on the Ant:

Go to the Ant, if you’re lazy -

    I know it sounds crazy - but watch!

The Ant always works; its jobs never shirks!

    Which, of course, tells you why, if it’s rainy or dry,

When there’s cold or there’s heat, the Ant still has plenty to eat!

 (from Solomon's Proverbs 6:6-8, poeticized by me a couple years ago)

Work and Leadership

One of the advantages of helping others learn English is that I get to learn while I do it.  I have learned unexpected stuff about high finance, human resources, and leadership development. Beyond that, the 'learners' frequently give me new cultural insights and a deeper understanding of the Turkish language.  While teaching is possibly an unusual way to learn and expand one's horizons in new areas, it is a quite enjoyable one.

In the last two weeks, I've gone through an article titled 'Beyond the heroic CEO: the changing challenge of leadership' which was required reading for one student.  Peter Hawkins says a number of useful things in this article, but I particularly appreciated the section about the challenges this world faces today and the ways in which we should approach them.  While you certainly may not agree with all of the challenges he mentions (I don't), the vastness of the challenges facing the world is hardly overestimated, and a huge proportion of the world's population sees these issues as serious struggles which need answers. He writes:

The challenge would be great if we were just facing global warming or population explosion or technological interconnectedness or the volatility and fragility of the financial markets or the exhaustion of accessible oil supplies or the extinction of species at a rate 1,000 times greater than ever before; but we are not. We are facing a world where all of these challenges and many more are happening in a systemically complex web of interconnecting forces, at an exponentially accelerating rate so that no expert can possibly understand the whole pattern, let alone know how to address it. (emphasis mine)

For a fascinating example of how the world's 'next tallest building' actually interacts at a greater or lesser level with each of the issues which Hawkins mentions, check out this article (and its accompanying video) which I came across completely separately.

Manhood is not Automatic

"Manhood is Not Automatic" was a helpful article to me, specifically and generally.  Meaning, it says things that are relevant to me right now, and it also says things that can affect the way I think for the coming years.  The article is both confessional and challenging; it speaks from Scripture and gives aids for probing your own heart.  May it help you!

 A brief excerpt:

Dennis Rainey said, “Our churches are full of men just like I was…one foot on adolescence and one foot on manhood and have not turned from the lusts, the selfishness, the passivity, the rebellion of the teenage years to become what God called them to be.”

Have you turned intentionally and aggressively away from the self absorbed life that marks the average adolescent teenager for something nobler?

Child-training, without a Fall

 As I have been pondering child-training again, I have considered what it would look like to have raised children in Eden. Obviously there is a certain amount of speculation inherent in considering a 'what if'; but in this case, we have some information to build on.

1.  The Garden (and the Earth) were always meant to be filled with children and people (Gen 1:28).
2.  The only perfect child ever actually born was Jesus, and He was born into a fallen world, so He dealt with things that would not have existed in a sinless world (Heb 4:15; 7:26-28).
3.  Jesus had to mature as a human being (Luke 2:52).
4.  Jesus learned obedience through His suffering (Heb 5:8).  Also, Adam and Eve obviously needed to learn obedience even in a sinless world; they failed to, at least initially.

 So, on a sinless earth, child-training would still have been necessary; children would not have been born mature... which doesn't even sound nice.  It might even have been necessary to teach children obedience, though that is completely speculative.  I would imagine from Genesis 1 and 2, as well as the rest of Scripture, that the areas of training for sinless children would have been concerned with loving God wholeheartedly, loving the people around you as yourself, and loving/ruling the land God has placed you on/in.  All of that still seems to be necessary and appropriate today.
  So, what was added to parents' responsibility at the Fall?  The basic change seems to be that now children will have to fight Sin and the effects of the Curse and Death from both inside and outside.  The positive side of teaching God's laws and ways did not necessarily change, and those are emphasized in Scripture.  But, I think those things would have been true in a sinless world.  What changed was that now the parent must fight his own sin nature, not provoke the child's inclination to sin, and train the child to fight their sin (Eph 6:4; Col 3:21).  I don't think that stretches these passages.  A final change would be that the parents are to aid the child in restraining and warring against his or her sin.  Solomon's Proverbs speak of that, which is another aspect I am studying.
 What I've found helpful in these thoughts is that it delineates my areas of responsibility as a parent.  It also makes it clear that I could successfully train my child in some areas while basically failing in others. For instance, I could teach them to love the place in which they have been placed without teaching them to love and listen to God.  Or, conversely, I might train them, by grace, to love God yet neglect to teach them to love the land in which they have been placed.  Of course, my brokenness will ensure that I cannot train them perfectly, but I hope that in grace I will continue learning and growing to train their hearts, minds, and strength better.