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The Shoeless Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life He was a man without a country, with a lost past and a blank future, in a troubled marriage with a son for whom he had no hope. He was just living day-to-day, doing the same thing, running out the string, nothing to challenge him and no expectation of change. Not much of a life, huh? That made him exactly the kind of man God wanted to be one of the greatest leaders in history… Who, HIM, a Leader? It’s absolutely amazing what kind of men and women God chooses to be His…
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The Imperative Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life The real Jesus Jesus was real. Radically, totally, absolutely real. This means He was fully real God and fully real man in the same person. However, He emptied himself of His divine prerogatives, not of His deity, but of His rights as deity. On the other hand, He filled Himself with human limitations and human needs, yet without sin. This means He desperately needed the Father and desperately depended on the Holy Spirit. Now some may react to the word desperately, and I understand if they do. I don’t mean desperate as in…
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The Inescapable Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life Every leader will spend seasons of life wandering in the wilderness. It’s inevitable and inescapable. There are no exceptions… The wilderness. Barren, empty, lifeless, colorless, solitary, unending hard sand, rock outcroppings, and rugged mountains. Hot in the day, cold at night. Far from the action, from the crowds, from life and what matters. Yet, in the Bible, the wilderness is the place where the action is, where the holy God shows up, where leaders are called, a nation is formed, and a Savior prepared. It is the place of spiritual warfare, the…
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The Sacred Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life The wilderness is God’s original temple, His personal dwelling place where He called His followers out to meet Him and be in His presence. It was in the wilderness that God called and commissioned Moses; it was in the wilderness that God gave the Ten Commandments; it was in the wilderness that God formed Israel; it was in the wilderness that God designed and guided Moses to create the tabernacle; it was in the wilderness that God disciplined His people to serve Him and to represent Him among the nations; it was…
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Wilderness Wanderings 2016
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings 2016: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life Happy New Year and welcome to Broken Leadership, the blog of Leader Formation International (LFI). My name is Bill Lawrence, founder and president of LFI, and I want to take a moment to greet you and inform you concerning our early 2016 blog plans. I want to write a series of blogs on the subject Wilderness Wanderings: when a zigzag line is the shortest distance between futility and fruition. If you’re in any kind of leadership position, whether business or professional, educational or governmental, or—the most important—parental, you surely have wondered at times…
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Starting Over
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken January 1, 2016. A new year and a new start. Celebrations and all that fun. Resolutions and all that jazz. Bowl games and all that pizazz. A new slate and all that hope. But what do we do with everything we’ve written on the slate of 2015? Does it all just go away? What if 2015 was a wilderness year for you as it was for me in some ways? The wilderness. Barren, empty, lifeless, colorless, solitary, unending hard sand, rock outcroppings, and rugged mountains. Hot in the day, cold at night. Far from the action, from the crowds, from life and…
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The Voice of a Proclaimer
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken The Voices of Christmas: The Voice of a Proclaimer He came as a proclaimer out of the desert in the line of the great Wilderness Prophets such as Moses and Elijah. He was John the Baptizer, and he was fully consecrated unto God and filled with the Holy Spirit from birth. John was both radical and real, and it was this radical reality that drew people from cities all around into the wilderness to hear his message. At one point Jesus asked, “What did you go into the desert to see? A reed blowing in the wind? A man dressed in fine clothes?…
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The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Clear the way of the LORD! Make straight a highway in the desert for our God! Every valley will be exalted and every mountain and hill will be made low; the rough ground will be made level, the rugged places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all the people will see the salvation of the Lord. The LORD has spoken. From Isaiah 40:3-5, the greatest Christmas poem ever written Many American Christians today are running scared. America has lost its cultural salvation, and they have lost their hope. …
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Considering Ash Wednesday and Lent
Today is Ash Wednesday – what exactly is this day? What are the origins? Is this something I should be aware of and participate in? This day of repentance, which for many in the Western church marks the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period of fasting before Easter following the example of our Lord who spent 40 days in the desert to fast and pray (Matthew 4:1-11). It is also known as the “Day of Ashes,” so called because on that day at church the faithful have their foreheads marked with ashes in the shape of a cross. In the Old Testament ashes were used for two purposes: as a…