Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

Va’era 5772 – Who Are You?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Until God showed his power, Moses doubted his own role in God’s plan. He continually asked the question that weighs on us all: “Who am I?”

Who am I to lead your people? Who am I to speak to Pharaoh? Who am I that anyone should listen to me? God replied by giving Moses a mission: to confront both the B’nai Israel and the Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.

When Moses asked again, “Who am I that Pharaoh should listen to me?” God, secure in his own identity (“I am/will be who I am/will be”), responded to Moses’ doubt with ultimate authority: “You are who I say you are. ”

Exodus 7:1-2  And YHWH said to Moses, See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh. And Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh, he will send the sons of Israel out of his land.

You too have a mission, a task delegated to you by God. If you doubt your ability to be of service to God and his Kingdom, believe this: God knows who you are. In the end, it doesn’t matter if you believe in your own capabilities so long as you trust in him. You will not overcome through your own power. You are just a tool. Moses and Aaron may have spoken God’s words to Pharaoh, but it was by God’s might that Israel was delivered.

Exodus 7:4-6  But Pharaoh shall not listen to you, and I will lay My hand upon Egypt, and bring My armies, My people the sons of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am YHWH when I stretch forth My hand upon Egypt, and bring out the sons of Israel from among them. And Moses and Aaron did as YHWH commanded them; so they did.

God knows who you are and what you are capable of accomplishing, and he does not choose his tools arbitrarily. He always uses the right tool for the job.

A Leopard and His Spots

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

If a captain twice abandons his ship and crew when the seas get rough, would you trust him at the helm of a much larger ship that is already listing and taking on water?

Shmot 5772 – Pharaoh’s Bad Marriage

Saturday, January 14th, 2012

Exodus 1:10  Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

And we all know how that worked out.

There are four ways to preserve a relationship that has begun to deteriorate:

  1. Disable the other person. Through emotional abuse, you can make a person doubt themselves and their ability to survive on their own. Through physical abuse, you can confine or even cripple a person so that they are physically incapable of leaving. Perhaps the most common method today of disabling a person to keep them in a relationship is by keeping them financially dependent. Your credit card issuer and your neighbor with two upside down mortgages can tell you how effective this tactic can be.
  2. Instill fear of the unknown. Convince the other person that there is a big bad wolf hiding behind every tree outside the door, that every person they encounter will take advantage of them, and they will be very reluctant to strike out alone. This method has worked very well for politicians throughout history.
  3. Bond. Be friends. Spend time together in situations that develop emotional attachment. Study, explore, play, fight, and work together. Have an adventure.
  4. Improve yourself. Make a relationship with you look more attractive than a relationship with someone else by becoming a better you. You have probably heard it said that you can’t change someone else. You can only change you. I haven’t read it yet, but Athol Kay’s Married Man Sex Life Primer appears to be based on this idea. It’s on my reading list.

Each of these methods works to a greater or lesser extent and there is a time and place in which each would be appropriate. A healthy relationship, however, will be almost exclusively characterized by methods three and four. Pharaoh tried to keep the Hebrews in Egypt by physically and financially hobbling them. Although they wanted more than ever to leave Egypt, they had no ships, no weapons, no chariots, and no gold with which to obtain such things. They had no allies. They came to believe that they were too weak to face the Canaanites and that their God was too weak or too busy to rescue them. Pharaoh’s strategy might have worked if he had not dismissed Joseph’s God along with Joseph himself. God is the champion of the oppressed and does not allow his people to be abused, enslaved, and terrorized forever.

America Is Dead

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Her corpse has begun to swell and stink.

The evidence:

  • Politicians barely even give lip service to true liberty. Most of those who do demonstrably have no understanding of the word.
  • The citizens are whiny dependents intent on ensuring everyone is as badly treated as they believe themselves to be.
  • Government at every level ignores the law almost at will.
  • Officers sworn to “protect and serve” are frequently just another criminal gang fighting over turf.
  • No conscious, competent citizen can live through a single day without breaking multiple laws, and the most intelligent person could never hope to understand even a small part of our laws even if he dedicated his entire life to the study.
  • The job market is flooded with degrees, but very little capacity for thought.
  • The looters vastly outnumber the producers.
  • There is a real possibility that the President is not eligible for his office.
  • Politicians and media are intent on importing as many illiterate, welfare-dependent foreigners as they can before the native Americans wake up to their treachery.
  • The economy is in the toilet due to ubiquitous corruption and government interference. The government’s response? More corruption and interference. The people’s response? Demand more corruption and interference.
  • Everything, everywhere is monitored, cataloged, and cross-referenced.
  • China is on the rise and we can’t sell our country, our infrastructure, and our jobs to them fast enough.
  • We are militarily over-committed.
  • Every military victory is either pyrrhic, fleeting, or fraudulent.
  • Our military is flooded with foreigners.
  • The news media, those so-called guardians of freedom, are engaged in a constructive conspiracy to ensure actual freedom is never again experienced in this country.
  • We murder our children, while crying about the trampled rights of frogs and cattle.
  • Women and children truly rule over us.
  • The family, the very core of our civilization, is under incessant attack from politicians, courts, the press, entertainers, and corporations.
  • Everyone knows certain truths about sex, race, and religion, but if you dare to speak those truths, you will be fired, sued, shunned, and possibly even imprisoned.
  • And on and on and on.

Let’s face it: America is dead and there is no other people prepared to take her place. It is too late to save her. Don’t bother asking how we can restore our rights. Don’t bother spending all your savings on a good man’s election campaign. Who cares who’s running the train when it’s already derailed? Forget all that. It’s a waste of your breath and resources.

Ask yourself this question instead:

How should we now live given our current circumstances and the likely course of future events?

The Caesars’ Game

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

I’ve been listening Mike Duncan’s The History of Rome padcast and have just made it to the ascension of Caligula. Havingread most of Vox Day‘s comments on male hierarchy, I couldn’t help but consider the early Caesars in that light. I have only a passing familiarity with these characters, so this is based only on Duncan’s podcast and high school history classes.

Here are the ranks as Vox enumerates them:

  • Alpha – Natural leaders. Confident, charismatic, and dominant. Usually run the show wherever they go.
  • Beta – Natural semi-leaders. Confident, but maybe not as charismatic. They have to work at it and frequently play second-fiddle.
  • Delta – The rank and file. Mostly passive. Stable, hard-working “family” men.
  • Gamma – Weak, scared, passive-aggressive loners. Sycophants and complainers. They get little respect and usually don’t deserve it.
  • Omega – Creepy losers. Sociopaths.
  • Sigma – Confident, charismatic, dominant men who don’t naturally incline toward leading anything or even necessarily participating.

Julius Caesar was a Natural, a born Alpha. He was charismatic, reckless, brash, and stunningly successful in war, politics, and womanizing. People adored him or abhorred him, but everyone respected him.

Augustus Caesar (aka Octavius, etc.) was not an Alpha. As a young man, he was intelligent and thoughtful but sickly and possibly even a coward. Men didn’t gravitate toward him or respect him. At best he was a Beta, but it’s possible he was a Delta or even on the border of Gamma. Fortunately for him, he spent much of his teenage years at the side of Uncle Julius, absorbing some of his character and methods. By the time Julius died he had become a Beta, and over the following decade he transformed himself into an Alpha. His more timid roots kept him from becoming a complete clone of Julius, however. He didn’t rule or conquer with the reckless abandon of his uncle, but remained a thoughtful and careful administrator. He relied very heavily on his even more intelligent capable advisor, Agrippa, whom I would call a strong Alpha if it weren’t for his continual preference to remain in Augustus’ shadow.

Tiberius began life as a Delta. He never wanted to be a leader, let alone an emperor. Circumstances forced him to adopt the behavior of an Alpha, but he always hated the role. The conflict between who he wanted to be and who he felt he was forced to be eventually broke him. He died an Omega.

Caligula could have been another Julius. He was born an Alpha, but he was twisted into Omega behavior under the murderous, perverted tutelage of his adopted grandfather.

Draw what conclusions you will. I strongly believe that men can become something to which they were not born. That can be a good thing or a bad thing.

America?

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

My mother used to say, “We’re not poor; we’re just broke.” It was her way of saying that poverty is a state of mind and believing that you are poor (whatever words you use to describe your state) will ensure you remain poor. It’s the same for nations and freedom. A free and moral people will be free and moral regardless of their form of government, while a servile and immoral people will remain servile and immoral no matter how much liberty and prosperity you attempt to foist upon them.

HT: Vox Day

Toldot 5771 – Making a Name

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

A couple of weeks late…

The name Esau comes from a root meaning “accomplished” or “complete,” and its characters share the same numerical value as the characters of the word shalom. Yet those things were not in his actual name. Esau was neither complete nor peaceful. Instead he was careless and angry. Red. Edom.

One take-away is the possibility that Esau could have become the man at which his name hinted. In trading the transcendent (his birthright) for the transient (a bowl of stew) he became a sort of reverse spiritual alchemist, turning potential gold into certain stubble. This is the inevitable end of the exceedingly passionate, to be wholly  consumed by their urges.

Passion is a good and powerful force when checked by the Spirit. When it is allowed to run free, it is crippling. Esau, in remaining enslaved to his passions, never approached the complete peace that he could have attained by submitting desire and passion to a higher calling in his father’s house.

Noach 5771 – A Leader by His Cover

Friday, October 8th, 2010

The mettle of a leader is not always found in the success of his ventures or even in the number or influence of his followers. A surer sign of the quality of a leader is the nature of the trust put in him, both to carry out a mission and to lead his charges safely through it. Athough most of the world rejected him, Noah’s wife and family followed his lead against all reason. The dove, having been once sent out, willingly entered a barren and hostile world again at his command. Finally God himself trusted him with the future of all humanity, calling him the only pure man left on earth.

HT to Adam Lieberman at Aish.

On Joyce Meyer

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

A while back I slammed Kathryn Kuhlman for some of her poor decisions. For a counter example, see Joyce Meyer, tpreacher, mother, and wife of Dave. I have no problem recommending her as a preacher worth hearing.

Patriarchy Is Good for Women

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Matriarchy might look good in theory, but it’s about as useful as having all feet and no hands. (See 1 Corinthians 12.)

Says the Elusive Wapiti:

But what feminists didn’t realize at the time they took patriarchy out back and shot it is that patriarchy, among other things, lassoed men into socially constructive behavior and dutiful service of society as a whole. And women in particular. Freed from patriarchy, men were free to throw off the yoke of duty and other-focused behavior and could pursue their own self interests full-tilt. Which quite a few dudes did, and found that a world without patriarchy–the world that women all yelled and screamed and marched and burnt bras for–suited them just fine. And they thought that this world was the one that women wanted.