40 Days of Prayer - Wilson Gunn

Quote: “Today we face a crisis in leadership in many areas of public and private life. Yet we misconceive the nature of these leadership crises. We attribute our problems too readily to our politicians and executives as if they were the cause of them. We frequently use them as scapegoats. Although people in authority may not be a ready source of answers, rarely are they the source of our pains. Pinning the blame on authority provides us with a simple accounting for our predicaments. “Throw out the rascals! They’re the reason we’re in this mess!” Yet our current crises may have more to do with the scale, interdependence, and perceived uncontrollability of modern economic and political life. The paucity of leadership may perpetuate our quandaries, but seldom is it the basis for them.

Furthermore, in a crisis we tend to look for the wrong kind of leadership. We call for someone with answers, decision, strength, and a map of the future, someone who knows where we ought to be going – in short, someone who can make hard problems simple…. Instead of looking for saviors, we should be calling for leadership that will challenge us to face problems for which there are no simple, painless solutions – problems that require us to learn new ways.”
Ronald Heifetz, Leadership without Easy Answers, p. 2

Scripture” “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10

Prayer: O holy and merciful God, to whom the future is known as if it were the past. Lead us to a deep trust in your providence. Give us the deep faith that you have hold of your church even as you have hold of the universe itself. Give us ears to hear the music of your voice even as it might sound dissonant to the song we prefer. Quiet us that we might learn your deep song and bring our voices into harmony with yours that your creation may be called into the completeness by means of our humility. In all these things we pray in the name of the song giver, our Lord Christ, Amen.

Question: How much of my own notes must I relinquish to match my voice to the Lord God’s? What “new ways” are we called to learn?

G. Wilson Gunn, Jr.
Executive Presbyter
National Capital Presbytery