The Voice of David
I'm challenging myself to see how long I can maintain this before it, like my previous Online Diary (for those of you who knew about it), falls into disuse. And like its predecessor, this one is likely to contain bags and bags of hot air (or, at the very least, entry after entry of subjective philosophical theories) so for those of you who somehow (or somewhy) ended up reading this, please pardon my entry (or entries) if it seems like I'm rambling endlessly, because I probably am.
What's that, you ask? Why "The Voice of David"? Well let me explain (of course you'll let me explain)..... King David was known as a man after God's own heart. He is also credited with having written an I-don't-know-what-percentage of the Psalms. But before King David was known as "King David", he was known as - yup, you guessed it - "David".
Now, the story is told - you can read it in 1 Samuel 17 (I think I'll cover it more in another entry; there's so much to learn from the story of David and Goliath) - that when David was a young boy (some say he was 12, but I don't know for sure) there was a confrontation between the Israelites, of which David was one, and the Philistines, where Goliath came from. To cut a long (but interesting) story short, David's older brothers, along with the rest of the Israelite men, were terrified of Goliath (c'mon, if your enemy stood 3 meters tall, wouldn't you be terrified too?) even though they had all kinds of weapons to use against Goliath. When David came to visit them, they called him wicked and conceited because he had confidence that God would lead them to victory against the Philistines. Finally, Saul, who was King at the time, (and in those days the King would lead the army into battle from the front, not some air-conditioned control room like they do nowadays - but that's another lesson for another time) listened to what David had to say, allowed him to go out and challenge Goliath, and David finally emerged victorious by killing Goliath with a single stone from his sling.
What we learn from this is that as leaders, we should take note not just of the opinions of those who are senior and more experienced, but also those who are young. Dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Business School says of his younger alumni leaders "When you seek out junior voices, two things surprise you: how much these young alumni have to say and how important it is." Even the Benedictine monks recognise this principle - when there is a decision to be made, the abbot asks the opinion of each of the monks, beginning with the youngest. Through this, we also learn to practice humility (an article was once written, though where it was published escapes my memory now - that we don't learn to be humble so much as we learn to practice humility), not only by taking into account what those younger than us say, but also by doing certain things that they do, like getting your own water/coffee/insert-beverage-of-your-choice-here instead of ordering (ok, I'll say it nicely - asking) someone to do it for you. (content adapted from Leadership Wired, the online newsletter of John C. Maxwell, available at www.MaximumImpact.com)
Anyway, I think that's enough food for thought for now - still got a lot of stuff waiting to burst forth from my itchy typing fingers though, but I guess I'll leave that for another time.
What's that, you ask? Why "The Voice of David"? Well let me explain (of course you'll let me explain)..... King David was known as a man after God's own heart. He is also credited with having written an I-don't-know-what-percentage of the Psalms. But before King David was known as "King David", he was known as - yup, you guessed it - "David".
Now, the story is told - you can read it in 1 Samuel 17 (I think I'll cover it more in another entry; there's so much to learn from the story of David and Goliath) - that when David was a young boy (some say he was 12, but I don't know for sure) there was a confrontation between the Israelites, of which David was one, and the Philistines, where Goliath came from. To cut a long (but interesting) story short, David's older brothers, along with the rest of the Israelite men, were terrified of Goliath (c'mon, if your enemy stood 3 meters tall, wouldn't you be terrified too?) even though they had all kinds of weapons to use against Goliath. When David came to visit them, they called him wicked and conceited because he had confidence that God would lead them to victory against the Philistines. Finally, Saul, who was King at the time, (and in those days the King would lead the army into battle from the front, not some air-conditioned control room like they do nowadays - but that's another lesson for another time) listened to what David had to say, allowed him to go out and challenge Goliath, and David finally emerged victorious by killing Goliath with a single stone from his sling.
What we learn from this is that as leaders, we should take note not just of the opinions of those who are senior and more experienced, but also those who are young. Dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Business School says of his younger alumni leaders "When you seek out junior voices, two things surprise you: how much these young alumni have to say and how important it is." Even the Benedictine monks recognise this principle - when there is a decision to be made, the abbot asks the opinion of each of the monks, beginning with the youngest. Through this, we also learn to practice humility (an article was once written, though where it was published escapes my memory now - that we don't learn to be humble so much as we learn to practice humility), not only by taking into account what those younger than us say, but also by doing certain things that they do, like getting your own water/coffee/insert-beverage-of-your-choice-here instead of ordering (ok, I'll say it nicely - asking) someone to do it for you. (content adapted from Leadership Wired, the online newsletter of John C. Maxwell, available at www.MaximumImpact.com)
Anyway, I think that's enough food for thought for now - still got a lot of stuff waiting to burst forth from my itchy typing fingers though, but I guess I'll leave that for another time.
posted by Ainsley at 4:21 PM
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