Everyone was focused. Computer keyboards were tap-tapping. The energy was very high all the way through to the very last moment of the very last song. Bill ended strong.
I think this may bave been the best Leadership Summit we'ver ever offered.
Here are some notes from Bill's talk....
Bill Hybels: Leadership Summit
Final Session Friday PM
I’ve profiled a lot of leaders of the years. None has affected me like “this pint-sized-nun-from-nowhere.”
2 Chronicles 16:9 “The eyes of God…for those fully committed to Him.” Searching the hearts of six billion people on planet earth. When God finds one, His strength and power comes on them.
God found Mother Theresa’s fully committed heart.
Early in her life she made a series of powerful private vows.
April 1942 Vowed to give God anything He might ask for; “to refuse Him nothing.” Yes to God no matter what He asked.
Vow: “If God imparts himself fully to us, shall we answer with just a part of ourselves?”
Vow: “To do His bidding without delay.”
Vow: “Be faithful in ‘the little practices.’”
Dignity to all.
The little sacrifices.
The little fidelities to scripture.
After reading her private vows, I began to see why God would raise her up. God spotted her willingness. Fully yielded.
If you were God, who would you empower? Who would you trust with influence?
I’d pick someone yielded.
I’d choose someone and pour my power into her life and raise her up. Wouldn’t you?
Are you the kind of person who is lighting up the radar screens in heaven right now?
I meet leaders who can’t understand why they aren’t leading a bigger deal. They are more obsessed with leading a bigger deal than yielding to God. If you were God for a day, would you pick you for increased influence?
That is a devastating question for me.
I started to get serious about being yielded. I got clear about wanting more of God in my life.
Summit 08 was worth it to me, just for the research I did on this one talk.
After a 400 mile train ride to a spiritual retreat she sees a picture of herself serving the poor in the slums of Calcutta, and doing so quietly for the rest of your life. What if God said, “That’s your future.”
She was ecstatic that God would notice her. God entrusted her with an assignment, directly from His sovereign hand. She referred to September 10, 1946 as “her inspiration day” for the rest of her life. She said, “Yes” without delay. No problem. God had spoken. “I will refuse him nothing.”
She said, “Yes” and intended to obey Him without delay.
I still believe God taps people on the shoulder and paints the picture of something in their mind. I’m a little worried these days about how the average Christ-follower responds to these nudges and callings.
What do you do when God taps you on the shoulder and asks you to step up?
Do you eagerly embrace the call?
Two kinds of leaders…from Summits past.
(1) Memories about moments of surrender. Stand and raise the flag of surrender. One-by-one.
People remember those moments. Some changed their lives forever….
Yielded hearts and fresh assignments go hand-in-hand!
(2) I hear other stories from other leaders too. Some say God gave them an assignment and then they
postponed their response. They didn’t say, “Yes,” without delay.
These stories are filled with regret; they are never happy stories.
For those who postpone obedience, there is not an “inspiration day” on the calendar. Don’t let that be your story. Don’t fail to embrace callings from God.
Refuse God nothing. You’ll never regret it.
Once Mother Theresa got to Calcutta the doors didn’t open automatically. Obstacles were not removed. The next 16 months became a living nightmare for her. Her boss told her to slow down and back off and stick to her teaching job. She couldn’t get permission.
So, she leads “up.” She meets with her supervisor to vision cast and gently persuade. It takes way too many meetings, which adds to her frustration.
Some of the other nuns spread lies about her meeting so often with her supervisor because “she has romantic feelings toward him.” She wants to move ahead but she can’t because she of obstacles beyond her control.
Some idiot, or evil king, wouldn’t cooperate…and it has happened throughout the history of God’s people. It looks like the dream is going to die. God does some of His most purifying work.
Is this assignment really from God, or did I just make it up myself?
How long am I willing to wait on God?
Do I really believe God can change the heart of someone in authority over me?
Would I lay down my life to carry out the vision God is asking me to carry out?
Be careful.
God might be preparing you, and refining you, by the frustration of this era.
It took Mother Theresa four months to convince her supervisor to let her go to the Arch Bishop. He said, “No. Not now. Wait.”
She was done waiting. She was at a true decision point.
She embarks on a letter writing campaign to wear the arch-bishop down. Passionate descriptions. Deep emotion. “I am only asking you not to stand in the way.” Month after month after month.
Then, her famous “Let me go..” letter. “Please let me go.”
A year-and-a-half from Inspiration Day she was given permission to go.
She had a “pit-bull-determination.”
As long as it takes..weeks, months, even years….my recommendation is to out-last the opposition. Who knows what God might do if you hang on to the vision God has put in your life.
Callings are holy things. Callings are precious commodities. Get your callings right. Endure.
In Calcutta she dove into her new calling.
This godly saint did not just sit around and wait on things to happen.
She had to find facilities.
She had to raise money.
She had to build a staff; she had to hire the right people.
She made leadership mistakes; she grieved them and was embarrassed by them.
She had to respond to hostile critics.
She had to keep her supervisors informed.
She was relentless. She made herself into a phenomenal leader.
Don’t say you can’t. How bad do you want it? How serious is your calling?
There were – for her – spiritual dry spell times.
Few knew this about her, but she would journal about this.
She want more of His presence and grace.
She wanted to “feel” God’s companionship. She want it to feel warmer and more tactile.
When that didn’t happen, she started to blame herself for the “lack of presence of God in her life.”
But, she would get up the next morning and go to work and carry on her calling.
One time she wrote these words, “Even though I don’t feel His presence, I will seek to love Him as he has never been loved.”
Incredible to me.
God deserves to be loved, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
Guys like me can’t hit four red lights in a row on the way to airport, think, “What’s up with this God?”
She pressed on year after year after year…not feeling His presence for most of her life.
I don’t know why I go through periods of my life when I can’t feel the warmth of the Spirit in my life. But Mother Theresa did all of the spiritual practices…and she didn’t feel the presence of Christ in a way that she longed for….but she kept doing her work.
When she unexpectedly became a celebrity, she fought off the temptations and continued her ministry.
September 5, 1997…she finished her work.
So often, as I finished reading about Mother Theresa, I would slip to my knees and say, “I will obey without delay.” I wrote in my journal, “God, I’d like to love you today like you’ve never been loved before.”
Our time is almost gone, in the session and in this Summit.
Watch this…before I close.
VIDEO: A Thousand Questions
“Here am I … send me!”
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