WHO DO WE TRUST? GOD. THAT'S WHO.

In our series preaching through the book of Romans, we are in chapter 4 with a message titled: WHO DO WE TRUST?  GOD. THAT'S WHO.

Listen well.

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 --Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Bailey Tabernacle CME Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He writes the popular blog: A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

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INVESTING IN THE BOSS'S KID

I wrote this post 4 years ago, on the eve of my daughter's 16th birthday.  Tomorrow she turns 20, and what I said then is even more true today.

Tomorrow my daughter turns 16.  For the last couple of hours I’ve been looking at her picture and feeling all wet in the eyes.

Which made me think about Eliezer and Abraham. 

Genesis 15: 1-3 says that Eliezer was the chief servant in Abraham’s household.

The household of a Biblical patriarch was a lot like a family owned corporation.  For example, in the house of Abraham, the patriarch had more servants (employees) than actual relatives by blood or marriage.

Yet the entire household depended on one another.  Together they weathered storms and famine.  Together, they fought marauders and rival tribes.   Together they would either prosper or die in the Canaanite frontier.  And when God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision in Genesis 17, EVERY male in Abraham’s house became a Jew---- the hard way.

But you could say that was all just good business. 

You have to be nice to the boss.  You have to work together.  If the company (household) fails then everybody’s out of a job.  In Old Testament days, being “out of a job” meant death or enslavement, so doing a good job was simple self-interest.  Genuine love wasn’t necessarily part of the job description.

But sometimes it was.

Before Abraham and Sarah had children, Eliezer was the designated heir of Abraham’s entire fortune.  So when Isaac, the promised son, came along Eliezer had no objective economic reason to love the boy. 

But he did.

We know that Eliezer CARED ABOUT Isaac because Eliezer INVESTED IN Isaac.

In Genesis 25, Abraham sent his chief servant to research and negotiate a marriage-merger for his son.   This was a lot of trouble.  There was no match.com to sign onto, no Instagram full of selfies to peruse, not even a postal system to send letters asking, “Hey, do you know any nice single women around Isaac’s age?”

Eliezer had to take ten camels and basically wander around the sparsely populated Canaanite and Mesopotamian wilderness looking for “the one.” 

And if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be released from this oath; only do not take my son back there.”…Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed, for all his master’s goods were in his hand. (Genesis 25: 8, 10)

At this point Abraham was old and Eliezer had power of attorney over the whole family business.  All he had to do was “not find” the right woman or ship Isaac off to Syria and he could have taken over the family.

But he didn’t. 

Instead, he risked his time, the peril of his own safety (wandering around the dessert with a caravan of provisions at his age), and his personal self-interest; and invested it all in his boss’s child.

^Then he said, “O Lord God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day, and show kindness to my master Abraham. (Genesis 25: 12)

In my career as an educator and pastor I’ve worked with, for, and over a lot of people.  Especially on faculties when I was a department chair or administrator (boss), teachers had an economic self-interest in being nice to me because I performed their evaluations and managed their personnel files.

They didn’t have to really love me.  They didn’t have to really love my house, my family.

But they have.

My daughter turns 16 tomorrow. When I posted the announcement online and looked at the range of people who commented and liked I realized how expansive my household has really been.

Over the last 20 years, teachers, counselor,  pastors, co-workers, colleagues, church members, and employees have invested in their time, their gifts, their favor, and their love in me, my wife, and our children. 

They have gone far, far out of their way to protect my children when I could not be there to protect them. 

They have prayed for my family.  They have looked out for my wife.  They have sought our good when our good wouldn’t do them any good.  They helped me and mine when undermining me would have been easy and profitable.

I know what you did.

You loved my house when you didn’t have to.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN (Genesis 16; 21)

 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. ² So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. ³ Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. (Genesis 16: 1-3)

God had promised Abram and Sarai that they would have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and grains of sand on the beach.  But by Genesis 16, Abram was nearly 80,  Sarai was ten years younger but still very post-menopausal, and they had no children.  But they did have a north African servant girl named Hagar. 

Law and custom permitted the lady of a great household to use a female servant as a surrogate mother.  The servant girl was supposed to lose legal rights to her biological child which the boss-lady would raise as her own.  Genesis 30:1-12 notes that of the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel were the product of similar arrangements.  You could call it servant surrogacy, or arranged marriage and adoption, or you could call it sexual exploitation of underclass and denial of their parental rights.  Whatever the terminology, Hagar got pregnant by her boss’s husband, ,who was her boss, and also now her husband, too (Genesis 16:3-4).

The shocking, surprising, and absolutely inevitable result of an old lady putting a young lady in bed with her husband ---- was drama. 

“When [Hagar]saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes.”  Hagar got a permanent attitude, but Sarai wasn’t about to put up with an uppity servant girl, sister-wife or not. 

Genesis 16:5-6

Sarai to Abram:  This is all YOUR fault.  Now, I swear to God you better do something about this little girl. 

Abram to Sarai:   She works for YOU.  Do whatever you want.  Just leave me out of it. 
Abram to himself (in a Danny Glover whisper):  I’m getting to old for this dung.

84% of homeless women had been physically or sexually abused.  HALF of all homeless women report that domestic violence was the IMMEDIATE CAUSE of their homelessness.

By the  end of Genesis 16:6, Hagar was pregnant, alone, and homeless, fleeing an abusive household in which her rich baby’s daddy had done nothing for her but get her pregnant.

Yeah, I know.  This ancient Bible stuff doesn’t relate to what happens in the modern world.  (Insert sarcastic eye-roll)

67% of the victims of the women who are seriously injured by their abusers never seek medical treatment.  Let me rephrase that: 2/3 of the women who are wounded by their abusers hide their wounds, and that is part of the problem.  Victims of domestic abuse feel invisible.  Our culture treats the victims of domestic abuse as if they are invisible.

They are not invisible.  Not to every one. 

Hagar was alone, homeless, and pregnant with no midwife and no community of women to look after her (i.e., no healthcare), but she was not invisible ---- to God.  God met Hagar in her distressed and disclosed to her a plan, a Divine plan to protect her and to prosper the legacy that would be realized in her yet unborn son (Genesis 16: 11, 12).  

Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” (Genesis 16:13)

 

God saw Hagar. 

She was not invisible.

Hagar returned to the home of her abusers.  Not surprising.   On average, it takes a victim seven times to leave before staying away for good. 

Years later, Genesis 21:1-19 explains, after the child promised to Sarah was born, Abraham conceded

to his first wife and evicted Hagar and her son Ishmael.  Hagar, now a single mother, again homeless,
 unable to provide for her teenage son.  

But, God was still the God who sees.  Hagar was still not invisible.

The Lord had gotten her out of the abusive home for good, and now the God-Who-Sees “opened her eyes,” so that she could see how to survive, how to provide for her son without compromising her dignity, how to not just survive, but SUCCEED.  The God-Who-Sees invisible women, transformed an abused, abandoned, homeless single mother into the patriarch of a great nation.  

Genesis 25:16 says that Ishmael had 12 sons who were “twelve princes.”  Abraham wouldn’t have 12 male heirs for 2 more generations.  And, because God invented irony, when Abraham’s 12  descendants turned on their brother Joseph, they tried to sell him to Hagar’s descendants (Genesis 37:25-27).

The abused and abandoned women are NOT INVISIBLE.  God sees.  God saves.  God has, can, and will do great things for them.

The mother on the street, again.  The sister whose last boyfriend put his hands on her like boyfriend before him.  The woman and child pleading because they CAN'T go back again: God sees them.  

If we truly serve God, we will open our eyes and see them, too.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

FROM FAITH? TO FAITH!

As discussed in the previous post, Faith? of Abraham, the great patriarch was a man of faith: sincere, soul-saving, immature, and inconsistent faith.  

In Genesis 15, God renewed His covenant to give Abraham and Sarah descendants as numerous as the stars.   In chapter 16, Abraham and Sarah plot to get their servant Hagar pregnant.  In chapter 20, the two great heroes of the faith revived their old scam of pretending Sarah was Abraham’s sister.  Abraham’s faith, immature and inconsistent as it was, couldn’t transform Abraham’s character.   So God kept working on him. 

Through all of Abraham’s failings, God kept stepping in, interceding, showing him favor, giving him

signs, and reminding him of the promises.  The Lord’s purpose was to transform him into a man with strong, mature, and consistent faith.   Such a man would be more than the sperm donor by whom a promised child was conceived.  He would be the FATHER whose faith laid the foundation for a nation.

For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him. (Genesis 18:19)

God’s plan worked.  Over time, Abraham matured from a believer who couldn’t go two sentences without questioning God’s promise (Genesis 15:6-8) to a man who could pass the ultimate test of faith. 

[It] came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, . . . “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”  (Genesis 22:1-2)

God said, “Abraham, Give me a sign.”  

. . . Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”

So, he said, “Here I am.”

And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” (Genesis 22: 10-12)

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son . . .  concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead (Hebrews 11: 17-19).

Abraham isn’t a hero of the faith because of how his faith began but because of what his faith became. 

After Abraham passed the test of faith, God renewed the covenant again but this time the Lord added a clause.  

In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice” (Genesis 22: 18).

That seed added because Abraham was faith-full, that Seed is JESUS.

Saving faith is only the beginning of our journey.  Believe in Jesus enough to give your life to Him.  Then believe in Jesus more so that your life is transformed by Him.

Be warned.  That’s when the big test will come.

Be encouraged.  Only then will the greatest Blessing happen.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064 

FAITH? OF ABRAHAM

Blogging Genesis (Genesis 15)

⁵ Then the Lord brought Abram outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

Genesis 15: ⁶ And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

In the Bible, Abraham is a heroic figure.  New Testament writers reference him as an example of faith that Christians should emulate (Romans 4; Galatians 3; Hebrews 11).   Abraham’s faith is on display in Genesis 15 when God appeared to reiterate the give the land of Canaan as an inheritance to Abraham’s descendants.   Genesis 15: 6 says that Abraham “believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” 

By faith alone God imputed righteousness to Abraham.  In other words, Abraham believed in God, and God believed in Abraham.

 

But 2 sentences later, the patriarchal paragon of faith asks, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will

inherit it?” (Genesis 15:8)

“How shall I know?” 

After all that “faith” stuff in verse 6, Abraham was back to wanting proof, evidence.  Lord, give me a sign!

And God did. In a vision and in a prophetic revelation, the Lord reassured Abram that his descendants would possess the land of Canaan as their inheritance from the Lord.  Because the Lord believed that Abraham would be faithful.

Later, God assured Abraham and Sarah that they would conceive a son --- together.  And Abraham and Sarah, both of whom are in the Hebrews 11 faith hall of fame --- Abraham and Sarah both laughed,  in God’s face and behind His back, respectively. 

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” (Genesis 17:17 )

Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”( Genesis 18:12)

Abraham believed God, but then he needed a sign.  And then Abraham believed God, but then he thought the whole thing  was falling-out-on-the-floor ridiculously funny. 

Saving faith can act in a moment to move us to repent of our sins, confess with our mouths, and truly believe in our hearts that Jesus rose from the dead.  In that moment, God imputes the righteousness of Jesus to our eternal account.   But then we walk out into the world.

In the world, you face the stress of making a life with your (literally) old, running a business west of

Sodom and Gomorrah, supervising a household of hundreds, and keeping everybody alive in between famines and raids by whichever king was out looking for slaves that afternoon.   

Nothing in human life is absolutely constant, not even faith.  And that is why Christians NEED the experience of regular worship and the fellowship of other believers.  We are not greater than Abraham.  

Like Abraham, we refresh our faith in worship where we re-experience fellowship with God and where we are reminded what the Word of God says.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064 

WAIT. THEY LOVE OUR GOD, TOO?

¹⁸ Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High.

¹⁹ And he blessed him and said:“Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth;

²⁰         And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tithe of all. (Genesis 14:18-20)

Two kings met Abram as he was returning from the rescue mission that freed his nephew Lot:  the king of Sodom and the king of Salem (Genesis 14: 17, 18).    The king of Sodom asked Abram to give him the people he’d taken out of captivity.  Abram told him to kick rocks (Genesis 14: 22-23).  Melchizedek king of Salem, as far as we can tell, didn’t ask Abram for anything.  Instead, he brought

food for Abram and his rescue squad.  Abram gave him 10% of his treasure.

Slow down.  Process that.

Two kings.  One (Sodom) we’d heard of before.  The other (Melchizedek) shows up for the first time out of nowhere in the Biblical record.  Abram the Hebrew patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, deferred to the new guy, and even paid his tithes to him.  Jews don’t tithe to pagan priests.

This Canaanite king, this Melchizedek was priest to the same God Abram served. 

The meeting with Melchizedek means that before Abraham,  there was an entire kingdom in Canaan already worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus.

Monotheism didn’t begin with the Jews.   God was in the land before Abraham got there.

Soon after these things (Genesis 15:1) God reiterated his promises to the patriarch.  In that vision, the Lord prophesied the Jews’ captivity in Egypt and explained why it would take 400 years.

But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”  (Genesis 15:16)

In Genesis 15, the Canaanites hadn’t yet totally abandoned the worship of God – the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus.  For 5 centuries, God gave them space to repent, but by Moses’ day, their apostasy was complete/ full.  That’s why the Lord sent Israel to displace the Amorites and other -ites of Canaan.  Yes, because He’d promised the land it Abraham; but also because by idolatry, the -ites had rejected Melchizedek’s preaching and forfeited their Divine rights to the land.

That’s why God warned the Israelites against adopting Canaanite culture.

Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. (Leviticus 18: 24-25)

But even in judgment against the land, God always saves a remnant among his children and not just among his Abrahamic children.

Remember Moses’ father-in-law.  Jethro, aka Reuel,  was a Kenite and a Midianite.  His dual-ethnicity tied him to multiple idolatrous Canaanite cultures, but Jethro wasn’t a pagan.  Like Melchizedek, Jethro the Kenite-Midianite was a priest to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus (Exodus 3:1). 

Melchizedek’s faith had survived 500 years of idolatry.   In Genesis 14, Melchizedek  met and refreshed Abraham.  In the next chapter, God formalized the Covenant with Abraham.   In Exodus chapter 2 Jethro met and refreshed Moses.   Moses encountered the burning bush in chapter 3.

2 points:

1.      God has true worshippers in every ethnicity and nationality. 

And other sheep I have which are not of this fold (John 10: 16). 

2.       Those of us who (think we) trace our ecclesiastical lineage directly to the apostles and patriarchs need to dial back the pride. 

Now John answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us.”

³⁹ But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me. ⁴⁰ For he who is not against us is on our side. (Mark 9: 38-39)

Scripture implies that one day we’re going to need to be refreshed by those other guys, the ones from “those countries” who despite their culture still worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus.

They won't look, sound, dress, or worship like you're used to, but being strange to you doesn't mean they're strangers to God.    Do not forbid them.  

 

Methodists, Baptist, Presbyterian, Unitarians, Jews, Muslims, and Community Agencies at Miles Chapel CME Church all working together to make the community better.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

SAVING THE NEW GUY

Blogging Genesis 14

A leader’s work doesn’t end when someone new takes over their title.   

In Genesis chapter 13, Lot, Abram’s young nephew  took over leadership of their prime pasture land.  In Genesis chapter 14, Lot encountered more trouble in that position than he was prepared to handle.  Cause that is how the world works. 

The Devil targets new leaders.

There had been 12 years of peace in the Jordan valley, but as soon as Lot started implementing his

vision for their people, trouble came from 9 different directions.  Nine kingdoms go to war with each other and  Lot is in the middle of it all.  Everything Lot owns, all of his employees, his entire family, and he are all taken by the 4 invading kings.   The other 5 kings, the ones who were supposed to protect Lot and his interests?  Those guys ran away. (Genesis 14:1-10)

Warn your proteges.  Tell your successors that the prophetic pattern is clear.  The devil comes for the new guy.

A leader isn’t successful until their successor succeeds.

Now, when Abram heard that his nephew had been kidnapped, he went full on Liam Nelson.  Abram rounded up his boys and called his Amorite allies Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner because some situation require you to call on your heathen friends (Luke 16:9).  They locked and they loaded and they went after the people who had taken Lot.

We make sons so we can have brothers.

Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. (Genesis 13:14)

The rescue mission succeeded but that’s not our main point right now.

In Genesis 14,  Scripture refers to Lot as  his brother not “his nephew.”  In their time together, Lot had been like a son to Abram, his student, his protégé; but Lot had grown up.  The shift in language affirms that Abram hadn’t “let” Lot lead in the south to shut the kid up.  Abram truly saw Lot as an EQUAL.  

Too often, older church folk only see younger adults as baby, son, and so-and-so’s child.  Abraham’s example teaches veteran leaders to progress to a new level of relationship to young adults in which they are your equals.  Don’t postpone that relationship until you’re too tired to hold on to the primacy.

While Abraham was in his prime, while he was still leading and fighting effectively, while he still had the power and influence to shut Lot out --- Abraham stopped calling Lot “my brother’s baby,”

and started calling him “my brother.”

When enemies overwhelmed his brother, the old man had to come to his rescue.  He didn’t ride in singing, “I told you so.”  Abram didn’t say, “I knew you weren’t ready to chair this auxiliary.”  Abram mobilized his contacts and risked his standing to rescue Lot without losing any respect for Lot as a man or a leader. 

Because that’s what you do when YOUR BROTHER is in trouble.

Watch out for the wish-you-were-stills

The mission was a success, but then the wish-you-were-stills came back.  You know  the wish-you-were-stills?  Say you led an organization for several years but you’ve stepped down and a new leader is in charge.  When that new leader  encounters a major problem you stop by to consult.  When you arrive, there will be  people who pull you aside and say, “We wish-you-were-still in charge.”

Some of them will wish-you-were-still out of sincere love.  They supported you while you were in charge. 

But some wish-you-were-stills will be the very people who’d opposed you at every turn, sabotaged your efforts, and made your time in charge a living HELL-O.

In Genesis 14, the 5 kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and their allies were Abram’s wish-you-were-stills.  Remember these were the guys who ran away, abandoning Lot and his family to be robbed and kidnapped (Genesis 14:10-12).  After the rescue (in which the 5 kings did not participate), the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, and take the goods for yourself.”  (Genesis 4:21)

He said, “Look, Abram.  This nephew of yours doesn’t deserve the wealth he’s acquired.  You made him what he is.  We wish-you-were-still in charge.  Let us come in after the crisis and remove him from power, and you can take it back. “

Abram recognized the manipulation and his response in verses 22-24 left wisdom for every leader tempted to take out the new guy.

• ·         Don’t be led by ego.  Be led by God.
• ·         Stay on mission.  You came to  help not to take over.
• ·         If you let the wish-you-were-stills give you the kingdom, they will own you.   Besides, if they’ll betray the new guy, they’ll betray you.
• ·         You have (or should have) new work to do.

Be the former leader you wish your former leader had been. 

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064