Daily Lesson for May 2, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Exodus 18 verses

14When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, ‘What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, while all the people stand around you from morning until evening?’ 15Moses said to his father-in-law, ‘Because the people come to me to inquire of God. 16When they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make known to them the statutes and instructions of God.’ 17Moses’ father-in-law said to him, ‘What you are doing is not good. 18You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.’

John Ortberg once said that leadership is “disappointing the people at a rate they can stand.”

One way to really disappoint people is to take on too much. 

This is a spiritual malady, an inability or unwillingness to recognize boundary and limitation, and a real ego trip. 

It’s also a prescription for crashing and burning and losing a whole lot of credibility in the eyes of others. 

We can’t do it all. We definitely can’t do it all alone. We need others to help. We need others to lead.  That means we’ve got to learn to share the burden. 

With al that is at stake right now, we are tempted to move on every front. Every cause, every case, every good and bad thing to stand up for or against. 

But surely, as Moses’ father-in-law said, we’ll wear ourselves out, and the people too.

Every week at the end of the service, in the way of benediction, my dear pastor friend Kyle Childress has the people stand up and hold hands.  “Hold on tight,” he says, “because we’re going to need each other.”

We really do.  

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.