Jethro Challenge (Effective Leadership)

Dear Diary,

#Leadership_Nuggets from Exodus 18 
#A-Day_at_Work_with_Father_in_Law #Advice #Priorities #Teachability #Mentorship #Productivity

Dear diary as you know, I was in Youth and Sunday School leadership for a decade. Now, as a temporal ‘retiree’, I look back and a mseto of feelings and emotions engulf me.  From your pages, you know I had quite some successes and failures equally. You know about those stupid mistakes as well as the joys of the incredible successes. From these tete-a-tete scribbles, you know there are things I wish I knew and practiced then but now that am wiser, let me share these important nuggets with those who are in the leadership now.

FYI, Moses had separated with his wife Zipporah and two sons-Gershom and Eliezer for a while. In the course of time, Jethro, a priest of Median and Moses’ father-in-law heard about how God had liberated Israel from the tyranny of Egypt. He was super excited and sent a word to Moses in the wilderness that he was bringing the boys and wife home. Moses was thrilled and waited for them to come home. He went out to meet them and cordially welcomed them home. They had awesome time enjoying the company of each other and in the presence of the Lord eating together as a family and reminiscing the great things God had done, v.1-12.

Fast-forward, the next day was son and father-in-law day at work and the experience took Moses’ leadership game into a whole new level. Moses took his seat to serve the people as a solo judge and the people stood around from morning until evening. Man! This must have been the most inefficient system for impatient people like me. Morning to evening, waiting up for a one-man system to serve millions of people with serious and trivial disputes? I can’t! Well, Jethro, is just the perfect father-in-law I need. He patiently waited; he didn’t interrupt; he keenly observed and made relevant notes. Later and at the convenient time he sat for a tete-a-tete convo with his son-in-law. Lovingly he asked, “Moses my son, what is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge..,?” v.14. Moses was kind-a, dad, this is how we roll, “The people come to me to seek God’s will. ¹⁶ Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions,” v.15-16. Dad Jethro was not impressed but good thing is he opened up and shared very helpful nuggets that took Moses leadership into a whole new level. Thank God Moses was teachable. Jethro pointed out that solo-judge was absolutely not a good strategy for Moses and the people. He gave him a wealth of advice as follows:

1. Priorities. Jethro pointed that Moses’ primary role was to intercede for the people. He was the people’s representative to God, v. 19
2. Training/mentorship. Instead of making all decision all alone, Jethro pointed out that Moses needed to teach/train the people to be able to make most decisions themselves. All he needed was to teach the people God’s decrees and instruction and model an example of the way/how to live and behave, v.20-2.
3. Delegation. Jethro encouraged Moses to find God fearing, faithful and trustworthy men and delegate/have them serve as officials and judges over smaller groups. They could be able to settle trivial disputes and only bring to Moses difficult ones, v. 23.

Who doesn’t love such a father-in-law? V. 24-26 tells us that Moses listened and did everything his godly father-in-law advised. The results must have been commendable. By focusing on the primary priority, mentoring, empowering and equipping the right people, it made it easy for Moses to be productive. It also gave the people a lot of satisfaction. Besides, time was saved.

Dear leader, in whatever capacity, are your priorities right? Are you teaching/training/mentoring/empowering/equipping other saints to serve their God given purpose in their generation? We can’t ignore our priorities, mentorship, empowering and equipping other saints for ministry and expect to be productive and successful. For retirees, it’s not too late to do something.

This is a wise scribble from the diary of a faithful scribbler.

Yours faithful scribbler,

NzakuNashipae